In Ukraine, Prosthetics are Restoring Hope—And Creating Superhumans

Ukrainians have lost arms and legs because of the Russian invasion, but today, they are superheroes.

Superhumans Center CEO Olga Rudnieva is standing outside a brand new five-story building, the Superhumans Center in Lviv, Ukraine. It’s a sunny July day, a light breeze wafts the scent of newly mown grass, and as we speak, the door to the building opens and four men with prosthetic legs come out and pass us. 

They’re each double amputees. If you’re watching closely, you can see that a couple of them are taking steps tentatively, perhaps because they’re not yet used to their new legs. 

Still, the atmosphere is surprisingly upbeat. The men are clearly enjoying being outside, and they’re each chatting animatedly with their companions. Looking at the small cluster of men as they continue down a slight hill, Rudnieva says, “After World War II, when someone was an amputee, we hid them away. Today, look how different our attitude is, ‘They’re just like us, except we see them as see them as superheroes!’” 

The Superhumans Center clearly does see the 40 or more men and women who get fitted each month with prosthetic devices as superheroes. As you enter inside the building, you can see many people wearing the Superhumans tee shirt: it shows the evolution of man from a small, hunched, ape-like creature to a modern man, but it doesn’t stop there. The T-shirt shows the culmination of evolution as a strong, superhuman standing tall with his prosthetic limbs. 

It’s a moving image. It captures the atmosphere of the entire facility.

THE SOCKET ROOM

Rudnieva guides us first to the area where molds are created for attaching prosthetics for individuals who have lost a leg (or legs). In the case of a man whose amputation is just above the knee, the stump of his leg will be fitted into a socket that then connects with his prosthetic leg. The sockets we’re looking at are about 15 inches long and wide enough to fit the stump of an amputated leg.

There are three of these sockets drying on racks. They’ve just been painted and decorated, and as Rudnieva points out, the wearer gets to choose what's painted on the sleeve. 

Walking up close to one, you see that it’s painted in browns and blacks and greens, like the camouflage of its owner’s army fatigues. Another socket is painted to resemble blue jeans. A third is particularly charming: It has a pink and white unicorn painted on it. 

“The young man who asked that his sleeve be decorated with a unicorn is a dad, and he wanted his six-year-old daughter to like his prosthesis,” explains Rudnieva. “The decorations are important because we want people to come to love their prosthesis. It becomes a part of them. If a patient has a tattoo, we’ll even have artists precisely replicate their tattoo on their prosthesis.” 

The tourniquet exercise between Rob Motley and Mykola Efimenko.

The next stop, after the socket painting area, is a physical training area. We enter a room where Rob Motley, an American volunteer and physical therapist, is teaching Mykola Efimenko to apply a tourniquet. Efimenko is going to apply it to Motley’s thigh. It’s a difficult job for Efimenko because he lost most of his hand and has to do a complex job with a bionic hand that consists of mechanical fingers.

Motley explains what’s going on: “Mykola is giving his all to proving that he can do this. His number one goal in life is to return to the front so he can be with his military brothers and sisters. However, he can’t return to the front until he’s demonstrated that he’s able to apply a tourniquet.” 

Motley sits in a chair, opposite where Efimenko is sitting, and we watch as Efimenko pulls a tourniquet from a pouch. Slowly, with his one hand and artificial fingers, he loops the tourniquet around Motley’s thigh, a couple of inches above where his imaginary injury is supposed to be. We watch as Efimenko pulls the tourniquet band tight and then twists the windlass—a six-inch sturdy rod—tightening the tourniquet until Rob has no pulse. 

If it were in an actual battle area, the pulse wouldn’t matter. Efimenko would keep tightening the tourniquet until the bleeding stopped. 

Incidentally, the procedure is painful for Motley. You can guess from his momentary wincing that he’s probably thinking something along the lines “This is the pits!” However, when asked, he mumbles something along the lines of, “Yeah it hurts a little, but Mykola needs the practice.” 

Efimenko has passed this test. However, even though he’s done it fluently and professionally, he’s not finished. Motley would like Efimenko to be able to do the same thing for an ankle and also an arm, and Efimenko even needs to know how to do it himself.

The men and women in the Superhumans Center are receiving new limbs, but the transformations that happen in the Center are more than purely physical. Yes, limbs are being replaced, but more importantly, hope is being restored, and these men and women are not just adapting to life with prosthetics, they're embracing it. 

They’re proving to themselves and the world that adversity doesn't define them; their determination, bravery, and selflessness prove that they truly are superhuman. 

More than 350 individuals are on the waiting list for prostheses. If you’d like to know more, and even better, if you’d like to donate so the Superhumans Center can treat more people faster, come to https://superhumans.com/en/