#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The Norilsk chronicler Iosif Shamis wrote about one unusual operation in his Novel about Surgery:
“In the mid-1940s, a pretty young woman lived and worked at the Ugolny Roochey mine. And she seemed to be happy – as her roommates thought. But one night, she made her way into the mine’s lamp room and drank a considerable dose of electrolyte. Fortunately, she was quickly taken to the central hospital. The young orderly who delivered the patient reported that she had poisoned herself on “love grounds”…
A council of doctors – two surgeons, a therapist, a dermatologist and a neuropathologist – determined that the esophagus was completely and irreversibly damaged. The surgeons, having consulted among themselves, decided to operate immediately. The operation was to be unique – to make a new esophagus from the patient’s biomaterial and place it under the chest skin.
The operation was conducted by surgeons Victor and Haya Kuznetsov. The operation was difficult, tediously long. But surgeons had skillful hands and completed the task successfully.
Many spoke with sympathy about the girl’s fate. And with admiration – about the operation. It was clear to everyone that such a patient was far from being an easy task. Another operation was done – the completion of the first one. When the girl fully recovered, she was released from the hospital. She did not return to her former place of living and working, where disappointment and misfortune befell her. Those who later saw Tanya and spoke with her said that she had an excellent appearance, that she did not complain about her health. Her friends even claimed that she not only seemed to have forgotten the mental and physical suffering she had experienced, which had brought her to the brink of the grave, but she again went towards her youthful joys. That is life…”
In the History Spot’s previous publication we told that in 1955 a reinforced concrete products plant project development began in Norilsk.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Svetlana Ferapontova, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
