It took the specialists of the Russian Children’s Clinical Hospital six months and more than twenty skin grafting operations to save a six-year-old boy from severe burns and restore his skin. Today, the child is already at home, he is playing and even running, but there is a long rehabilitation ahead. Anton Narbutov, Deputy Chief Physician for Surgical Work at the Russian Ministry of Health, told RG about this.

The tragedy occurred in November 2025, when a Ukrainian drone hit a private house in the village of Dragunsky, Belgorod region. A big fire broke out. The child’s mother died, and the boy suffered third-degree burns. About 60% of the body surface was burned: only the legs remained intact.

Such extensive burns are a real threat to life. In an extremely serious condition, the child was evacuated to Moscow, to the RCB. Doctors of various specialties saved the little patient.: intensive care anesthesiologists stabilized his condition, clinical pharmacologists selected the necessary medications, pediatricians developed a special parenteral nutrition scheme, since the baby was unable to eat on his own, and otorhinolaryngologists provided respiratory tract support with a tracheostomy.

Surgeons played a key role in further treatment. Extensive areas of burnt and dead tissue are a direct threat of severe intoxication and a risk to life.

The surgeons acted in stages. They applied the technique of transplantation of split skin grafts. This surgical procedure requires surgeons to be very precise: the doctor removes a thin layer of the patient’s own skin from an undamaged area of the body and transfers it to the wound surface, which cannot heal on its own.

“In cases of such a large area of lesions and a lack of donor surfaces, we use a dermatome device to take a split skin graft. It allows you to take the thinnest, less than a millimeter thick, plate of healthy skin without affecting the deep layers. The resulting grafts are transplanted onto the wound surface, contributing to its healing. And the area from which the skin was taken, or the donor site, heals in about two weeks. After recovery, we can repeat the procedure, again taking the skin graft from a healthy area,” said Anton Narbutov.

The treatment was long – more than 20 surgeries had to be performed by surgeons before all the extensive affected areas were closed. When the main surgical stage was completed and the child’s condition improved, the otorhinolaryngologists removed the tracheostomy and restored his ability to breathe on his own.

The doctors of the RCB and the Federal Children’s Rehabilitation Center Korablik tried to preserve the child’s function of severely injured hands and fingers. Now the baby is at home, he walks, plays and even runs on his own.

But there is still a long recovery ahead: in September, the boy will return to the RCT for continued rehabilitation, and in the future he will undergo plastic surgery to correct post-burn scars.

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