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The soldier has been wounded six times, and had stitched up his leg himself instead of a surgeon twice. He spoke with us of how training at the headquarters helped him save a machine gunner with the call sign "Sober".
"I have six wounds, but I'm not going to be discharged from the army. I feel that the boys and girls here, on the front line, need me," 45-year-old senior combat medic Andrii Kimlyk begins his conversation with us. "But my 77-year-old mother still thinks that I work in a hospital. I don't want her to be nervous, I'll tell her everything after the victory."
A Kharkiv native with the call sign "Doctor Alban" has been serving since the summer of 2022. He took part in the liberation of the occupied part of the Kharkiv region, the defence of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and is now also in Donbas.
"In my values system, I'm at war until victory," says the man, who in civilian life worked as a paramedic and chiropractor.
Kimlyk volunteered to join Ukrainian army. He is glad that his native unit is actively supported by former patients and just acquaintances from his civilian life.
“Volodymyr and Mila from the Netherlands purchased a generator, night vision devices, thermal imagers, drones. Tatyana helped with thermal imagers, fpv, and a car. Thanks to my friends Oleksiy and Artur, we got a minibus, a motorcycle, and even an ATV. I am grateful to everyone who is always ready to rush to help us and the army in general,” the medic emphasizes.
“Some needs for medical supplies are fulfilled by the brigade, and with some we can only come to volunteers or charitable foundations. Hence I have successfully contacted Leleka Foundation / Leleka-Ukraine three times by now. I received fully-stocked backpacks, stretchers, occlusive patches, soft splints. Unfortunately, first-aid supplies are consumables. Things get soaked with blood, fall in the mud. There are emergency situations when you have to leave things at the positions,” says “Doctor Alban” about medical needs.
We ask where his call sign came from. “It’s a funny story,” Andrii smiles. “At first, the guys just called me “Doc.” But since there was another “Doc” in the neighboring unit, with whom we often crossed paths, we had to come up with something. At that time, my phone had a ringtone by the Swedish singer Dr. Alban with the song “It's My Life.” That’s how my call sign turned into “Doctor Alban.”
Ukrainian field medic hasn't taken a leave in 1.5 years. His wife Kateryna jokes that he only comes home when he’s injured. As the soldier already mentioned, he had been six times. The most serious one, a shrapnel wound in the thigh, he got in a battle in Bakhmut. It took Andrii a month to recover after that.
Kimlyk uses an example of a specific patient to explain the importance of continuous training for field medics.
“Our machine gunner with the call sign “Sober” had been wounded in the neck. Blood gushed out, he clamped the wound, then the department commander came running, also clamping. Then I rushed over from another position. The guy was conscious, I calmed him down, put a tourniquet on his neck over his shoulder. He survived,” Andrii recalls. He says that he learned this technique at the headquarters near Pokrovskoye: “In the fall of 2022, my battalion was seconded to the 110th brigade. And then I was sent to their headquarters for training. They brought a guy there with a similar injury. One of the combat medics on the battlefield was putting a tourniquet on his neck over his shoulder. It was the first time I had seen something like this, I was interested. And then surgeon Volodymyr taught how me to do it.”
But the medic is ironic about his injuries.
“I’ll tell you a funny story. I got another shot in the leg, I ended up in a hospital in Dnipro. The surgeon was already ready to stitch up the wound, but he was urgently called to the seriously injured soldier. He said that he would return in a couple of hours and stitch me up. But I suggested that I do everything myself. The doctor agreed, leaving the operating room nurse to look after me. I coped. The second time with a wound in the same leg, I ended up in the same hospital, with the same surgeon. He recognized me and asked: "well, are we working according to a proven scheme? ", - shares his memories Ukrainian defender. He adds that he pulled out small fragments from himself many times, stitched up small wounds and "ran on". He says that even at the front lines he tries to act with as much humor and optimism as possible.
Wife Kateryna and two daughters - 19-year-old Albina and 16-year-old Nastya - await Senior Sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrii Kimlyk at home. And, of course, an elderly mother who does not know that her son is fighting in one of the largest brigades.
Photo credit: Andrii's social networks and his photo reports to Leleka.