COVID-19 killed the legendary Serbian surgeon who saved thousands of people in the wars of the 90s
After five days of fighting the coronavirus, the director of the Emergency Center of the Clinical Center of Nis, the legendary volunteer doctor who performed thousands of operations on the front line, surgeon Miodrag Lazic, died.
Serbian media reported this, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“My departure is honest and logical, as the director of the Emergency Care Center, two months before retirement, I remained with you, dear doctors and nurses,” the doctor wrote three days before his death. “I stayed on the first line, didn’t hide, knowing about my years and illnesses, but honor and pride did not allow me to leave.
I was like this in the war in Krajina for one year, and in the war in Sarajevo for four years, and during the NATO bombings... My beloved Kraishniks, friends from the Republika Srpska, I know that you will be very sad, because for you I became a living legend, and you thought that I was invulnerable. How much support I have received from you these days... My last wish is to accompany me with the “March to the Drina” (a popular Serbian military march from the First World War - ed.).
Miodrag Lazic at work
Lazic became infected with coronavirus at work about fifteen days ago and after the test gave a positive result, he was admitted to one of the departments of the Clinical Center. According to colleagues, three days before his death he was sociable, even cheerful, although he foresaw that he would lose this last battle in his life.
As a surgeon in Niš, Miodrag Lazic took unpaid leave in August 1991 and volunteered to go to the front as a field doctor, staying at the epicenter of the fighting until February 1996.
He began working in military conditions from a hospital in Dvor na Uni in the Republic of Serbian Krajina (Croatia), where he treated victims in Glina and Kostajnica, and in June 1992, together with the army of the unrecognized republic, he participated in Operation Corridor to break the blockade of Serbian Croatian lands. -Bosniak separatists.
Afterwards, Lazic became a volunteer surgeon at the Korana hospital in the Serbian suburb of Sarajevo - Pale (BiH), and then was one of the initiators of the creation of the Zica hospital near the front line, where he worked as the only surgeon for three and a half years.
According to eyewitnesses, he worked almost XNUMX hours a day, seven days a week, and performed about four thousand operations on wounded military and civilians under general anesthesia and more than eight thousand other types of surgical operations.
After the signing of the Dayton Accords imposed on the Bosnian Serbs by the West, Lazic remained in the clinic for two more months, and then returned to Serbia, to his native Nis, where in 1999 he survived the NATO bombing.
Doctor Lazic, even knowing that his hours were numbered, did not lose courage
Documentary films and programs were made about the legendary surgeon. On the day of his death, colleagues in Niš honored his memory with a minute of silence.
COVID-19 Killed Legendary Serbian Surgeon Who Saved Thousands of People in the Wars of the 90s