A pregnant woman and her baby have both died from injuries sustained after a Russian airstrike on a Ukrainian maternity hospital last week, according to a report on Monday.
In an image that went viral, the woman, unnamed in the Associated Press story reporting her death, was photographed being carried on a stretcher out of the rubble of the bombed-out Mariupol maternity hospital. She was rushed to another hospital after the bombing, but doctors could not save her or the baby.
“Kill me now!” the woman reportedly cried out when she realized she was losing her baby, according to the Associated Press.
The woman’s pelvis was crushed and hip detached, according to Timur Marin, the surgeon who attempted to save the woman and her baby. Hospital staff delivered the baby via cesarean section, but it did not show signs of life, Marin told the Associated Press.
Resuscitation efforts on the mother after the C-section also failed.
“Both died,” Marin told the Associated Press.
The report notes that in the chaos, medics did not obtain the woman’s name before her husband and father arrived to take her body.
Medics in the report also said that because family members retrieved her, she likely didn’t end up in one of Mariupol’s mass graves.
Russian airstrikes in Mariupol on Wednesday destroyed the maternity hospital, the children’s ward, and the hospital’s department of internal medicine.
At least 17 women and staff members were injured, and three people died. It is unclear if the woman photographed on the stretcher and her child were among the three people counted.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that 18 attacks on health facilities, personnel, and ambulances had been “verified” in Ukraine. Those attacks have left 10 people dead and 16 others injured.
Authored by Victor I. Nava via Washington Examiner
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