A Ukrainian marine lost a leg and an arm to Russian fire. Philly specialists sought to restore his life.

Ukrainian marine Roman Horodenskyi, his left leg made of metal, his right arm gone at the shoulder, stood outside the offices of a Delaware County prosthetics specialist in the fall, casually flicking the ash of his cigarette into a storm grate.

“I hope there’s no gas fumes,” he said, lightly laughing. “I’ll lose the only arm I have left.”

The Russian invasion of his homeland has taken half his limbs, a reality that darkened his humor and sharpened his spirit.

At 20, he’s come to the Philadelphia region in search of a mechanical marvel, a device he hopes can return him to a military career and to something approaching a normal life: a specialized artificial arm, controlled by the signals that fire in the remaining musculature of his shoulder.

What was once the punishing right arm of a 6-foot-3, 227-pound boxer now is a three-inch stub. The hope is the protrusion will be enough to anchor the arm and help trigger the electrodes housed within a prosthetic socket.

Inside the Eddystone office of Prosthetic Innovations, specialist Jonathan Tuazon pressed a sensor against the rear of Horodenskyi’s shoulder. The marine flexed his back and, on a nearby table, a mechanical hand opened and closed.

A smile moved across Horodenskyi’s face.

The company treats lots of war veterans like Horodenskyi, who was injured in April 2022. But even modern prosthetic arms, with their futuristic style and ability, can be difficult to control and limited in function — about half as good as the real thing, one study found.

Some people with upper-limb amputations ultimately reject the prosthetic, or become passive about it, leading to injuries when they overuse their remaining arm.

Horodenskyi has no doubts.

“Better plastic and metal than nothing,” he said.

In Ukraine, he said, prosthetics tend to be less advanced and hard to get, particularly as hospitals and health centers fill with wounded soldiers and civilians almost a year after the invasion.

In early September he arrived in Florida to receive his prosthetic leg, then traveled a few weeks later to Philadelphia.

It became possible through a U.S.-based, Ukrainian-American-led nonprofit, Revived Soldiers Ukraine, which works to bring injured troops to American hospitals, clinics, and health facilities for advanced treatments and surgeries. That task has become urgent, and arrivals more frequent, as the war inflicts grievous, life-altering wounds.

“It’s going to be constant,” said Roman Vengrenyuk, a lead volunteer in the nonprofit’s Philadelphia chapter.

Two are in the Philadelphia region this month for new arms. Two are getting legs in the Washington, D.C., area, and others are being treated in Orlando and Chicago. Six more will be in the U.S. soon.

Some of those treated in this country have gone back to the fighting, and some of them have been killed in combat.

Philadelphia has become a destination because of its quality care and because wounded troops require a substantial support system, one that can provide housing, transportation, food, and translation services. The region has one of the nation’s largest Ukrainian communities, nearly 70,000 people who are immigrants or have ancestry.

» READ MORE: How Philadelphia became a home for Ukrainian culture

Horodenskyi was 18 when he joined the marines, and 19 when a shell took his limbs. He’s not resentful, doesn’t blame the military. He doesn’t ask, Why me?

“He jokes a lot, about himself,” said Olha Dishchuk, who with her husband, Oleksandr, hosted Horodenskyi in their Huntingdon Valley home.

On a boating excursion in upstate New York, he told the family he’d be of no use on the oars — the boat would go in circles.

“I had to start joking,” Horodenskyi said. “It makes me feel better.”

For as long as he can remember, he said, he wanted to follow the military path of the men in his family. He’s not giving up. Maybe he can’t go back to his unit, can’t rejoin the day-to-day fight for Ukraine. But, he said, he can teach his skills to others. And he knows they’ll need him.

“There are many soldiers that are going to be coming back wounded,” he said. “I want to show them what can be done. What is unbelievable for others has become normal to me.”

It’s hard for Horodenskyi to pinpoint his most difficult moment.

But the most physically painful? That’s easy. And it wasn’t on the battlefield, nor even at the moment of injury.

He and fellow troops from the 36th Marine Brigade were arrayed outside a factory, the huge Illich Iron & Steel Works in Mariupol. They fought to hold the port city, set northeast of the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.

The Ukrainians took heavy fire all morning and into the afternoon. At about 3 p.m., Horodenskyi said, a big round streaked past him — probably a rocket or bazooka shell.

Moments later a second round exploded nearby. His leg was gone instantly, his arm shredded.

Horodenskyi remembers hands on him, feeling pressure on his leg and shoulder as his comrades tried to fix tourniquets. They lifted and carried him toward the rear, eventually reaching a makeshift field hospital in a basement.

Medics tried to clean and wrap his wounds, but bandages were few and painkillers dwindling. Over the next eight days they ran out of medical supplies, food, water, and ammunition. Their commander surrendered.

Horodenskyi was taken prisoner, moved to a Russian-controlled hospital. He and other Ukrainian wounded lay in what he described as a big, open room. Boughs of broken bone extended from his shoulder.

That’s where the worst occurred, Horodenskyi said.

Russian soldiers were allowed to roam freely among the injured, he said. They would stop beside him, grab hold of the exposed bone, and twist it.

Horodenskyi’s arm hurts. Not the left, the one that’s still there. The right, the one that’s gone.

It’s expected — 80% of people who lose a limb experience phantom pain.

Russian surgeons amputated what remained of his arm, but in May, Horodenskyi became septic, a condition where widespread infection threatens organ failure and death. At that point the Russians swapped him to the Ukrainians in a prisoner exchange.

In Odesa he underwent the first of 11 surgeries.

Horodenskyi’s biggest problem now, at the Eddystone prosthetics specialist, is that so little of his shoulder remains.

“Lean into me,” prosthetist Michael Rayer tells him, as he works a clear, plastic socket against the nub of Horodenskyi’s shoulder.

Rayer, who specializes in upper extremities, is a partner at Prosthetic Innovations. And at the moment he’s concerned. Simply put, he said, there’s not much real estate with which to work.

He grabs a blue pen, marking points on the plastic shell that need to be trimmed, enlarged, or shrunk. It must fit tightly, the interface between man and man-made.

The room is adorned in generations of artificial arms, some of them basic World War II-era devices with hooks for hands, others new, highly advanced versions with flexing joints and articulated knuckles.

Some cost as much as a top-model Tesla. Horodenskyi’s arm, thanks to a generous discount from Prosthetic Innovations, cost about $34,000, according to Revived Soldiers Ukraine, which funds treatments here and elsewhere.

Specialist Tuazon secures the molded plastic to Horodenskyi’s shoulder, looping straps around his torso to keep it in place. Those supports must hold the weight of the arm, while being as small as possible for comfort and range of motion.

It fits. The electrodes work. Rayer is at once pleased and relieved. In the space of a daylong visit, his doubt has turned to exultation.

For Horodenskyi too.

“Robocop,” he says.

The National Constitution Center is always crowded during the presentation of the Liberty Medal, which honors those who strive to secure liberty around the world. The medal has been bestowed upon presidents, senators, scientists, civil rights champions, and religious leaders.

On Nov. 7 the medal went to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for “his heroic defense of liberty in the face of Russian tyranny.” But the president wasn’t the only one recognized at the ceremony.

“I would like to acknowledge the presence of a Ukrainian marine veteran,” Iryna Mazur, the honorary consul of Ukraine to Philadelphia, told the crowd. “Roman Horodenskyi defended Mariupol, lost his arm and leg, was tortured by the enemy, but still proudly stands with his president today, like all Ukrainians. Roman, thank you for your service and your bravery!”

The ovation rose, a thickening wave of sound directed toward a young man in battle fatigues, his new arm held close to his body. Horodenskyi acknowledged the ovation with a nod.

Shortly afterward he returned to Ukraine.

On Christmas Eve he married his fiancée, Viktoriia Olianiyk. They dated before he was wounded, and he proposed as soon as he reached Ukrainian soil.

His future is evolving, his role in the military and the war still developing.

His prosthetic arm? It’s not perfect, he said, not as functional as people might think or as he had wished.

But it’s hugely better than the alternative. It’s helped his balance, restoring his body’s natural alignment. It’s made him more comfortable. More whole.

“I feel more complete,” he said, “as a person.”