The Story of Petro – a Man with a Third Heart

Petro Zinich – a 30-year-old nurse from Bila Tserkva, became the first in Ukraine to survive a second heart transplant. Working in a hemodialysis center, he helped other patients every day, although he himself constantly needed help. When the heart transplanted in Minsk in 2016 began to fail, its function dropped to a critical 11%. For two long years, Petro waited for a donor, the last month and a half – under the constant supervision of doctors from the Heart Institute.

“I was probably the most worried. Performing a second heart transplant is technically very difficult. After seven years, the heart grows with adhesions, and separating these adhesions is very dangerous,” tells Prof. Borys Todurov.

20 minutes without a heart, 4 hours of jewelry work – and the new organ worked in the patient’s chest. His wife Viktoriya was waiting nearby the whole time: “These hours of waiting were very difficult. I thank the doctors and the donor for giving Petro the opportunity to live on, to be with us, with the children.”

There are many answers to the question “why does the heart start to hurt?” But Petro Zinich’s heart could not stand the pain of loss and the exhausting search for his brother’s body… Petro’s brother – Ihor Zinich, a military medic with the call sign “Psych”, was a real guardian angel for many “cyborgs” at the Donetsk airport. He saved dozens of lives, refusing to leave the DAP, because there was no one to replace him. On January 20, 2015, Ihor died, posthumously receiving the title of Hero of Ukraine.
A month after the explosion of the Donetsk airport, Petro searched for his brother’s body in the morgues. That’s when his heart could not stand it… Although there was no congenital defect. The boys’ mother, Vira is sure that Ihor continues to protect his family. And the surgery is another confirmation that he is there, helping his friends and doctors save his brother.

Now Petro feels much better and is already planning to return to work in six months. At the Heart Institute, this operation became the 120th successful heart transplant and the first retransplantation in Ukraine.