New Ukrainian "Bachelor" Oleksandr "Teren" Budko tells how he survived the loss of his legs at the front

Oleksandr "Teren" Budko, a war veteran, author of the YouTube project "Leg Dump" and now the new hero of the reality TV show "The Bachelor," recalled how he lost both his legs at the front in the Kharkiv sector and how difficult his treatment and rehabilitation was. He notes that it happened on the Independence Day of Ukraine, August 24, 2022, in a place where the occupiers never aimed and nothing came.

According to the then-commander of the 49th Separate Carpathian Sich Rifle Battalion, no one even knows what kind of weapon was used, so he considers this situation very strange. In an interview with Hromadske_talk, the bachelor recalled that he was in a trench at the time, and the occupiers specifically aimed at the place where the man was partially covered.

"Everything happened very strangely. We were the only group that worked from that village, so there was no one else there at all. And nothing flew there either before or, in fact, after that. The only time it came was to the trench where I was lying. And we still don't know what it was. I asked those who are still alive, and no one can give me an answer. It just happened so suddenly. A very strange coincidence," the bachelor said.

He realized immediately that he had lost his limbs because of the hellish pain, "because it can only hurt like that when they are gone. Moreover, I was covered with earth, and I thought: well, I'm definitely without legs."

"At first, it was physically very painful for several, maybe even weeks. It hurt like hell. I was constantly given painkillers, fentanyl patches, spinal anesthesia. And all this almost didn't help, because phantom pains [when a person feels pain in parts of the body that are not present - Ed. And these phantom pains lasted for about two months, I thought I was going to go crazy," he continued.

The veteran noted that painkillers did not help to eliminate the pain, and in addition to it, there were frequent surgeries, which caused the man to experience even more discomfort.

"Two months later, the pain became less, the phantoms were still there, but not so pronounced. And I started thinking about how to get prostheses, where to get them, and whether I would walk at all. Obviously, like most people, I had never been in such a situation before and did not know how to behave. At first, I really wanted to go back to the front. I thought: I'll be gone for two months, I'll get my prostheses fitted, come back and then we'll go back to fighting. But when you have gone through a certain process of recovery and putting all the hemispheres of the brain back in place, you realize that you will not be effective in the army. I started thinking about what I could do in civilian life," the ex-commander explained.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, Oleksandr "Teren" Budko decided to take part in the new season of The Bachelor because, first of all, he wants to show people that war veterans can and want to live a full life in all senses and be reliable partners.

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