Tatiana and her husband enjoy traveling in times of peace (Image: Courtesy of Tatiana) Tatiana and her husband were living in Mariupol, where the Russian army shelling had left her with severe injuries all over her body. As the fighting continued to escalate, they were unable to leave the basement of the hospital. How did they survive the inferno? Following on from Part 1: The Miraculous Escape of a Dying Couple, we would like to look back on the actual story of their survival, as told by Tatiana, a female English teacher.   — Tatiana, how did you get out of the hospital basement? At the end of March, the battle zone moved farther away. We were able to go above ground to look for water and food. But the bodies were lying in the streets, and we could not go to the cemetery to bury them. People began burying their loved ones and neighbors in the yards of their apartments. They made a bonfire and cooked food near the entrance to the basement, but when the planes flew in, everyone fled to the basement. Many who failed to escape died while cooking. Around the hospital, most of the houses were burned down and collapsed, so the sounds of explosions and flying debris could be heard really well.” — Were you able to get water and other supplies? Soldiers from the Donetsk People’s Republic (in the Russian-occupied eastern part of Ukraine) started bringing drinking water to the hospital, but there was a limited supply. We had to wait in line for half a day to finally get some, and sometimes we couldn’t.” Words that plunged the couple into the depths of despair –What was the most difficult thing for you? We couldn’t contact anyone and had no information at all. We didn’t know if our relatives and friends were alive or what was happening in this country. The fighters from the Donetsk People’s Republic told us from the very beginning when we came into the hospital, ‘The main cities have already been occupied by Russia, and there are only a few [unoccupied areas] left. People were at their wit’s end, despairing that Ukraine was almost under occupation.”   –How did you evacuate to the Ukrainian side? We were waiting for the opening of the humanitarian corridor and the call for evacuation. But the Russian army and the units of the Donetsk People’s Republic would not allow us to evacuate to Zaporizha (in the north), and they were sending people to Donetsk or Rostov (in western Russia) in buses they had prepared. At that time, I received information that there was a route from Mariupol to Zaporizha via a village about 20 km away from Mariupol. I asked an acquaintance who had a car to take me to the village, but the road out of Mariupol was blocked on the pretext of a military operation. We could not get through. This time, we looked for a different road and convinced the soldiers at the checkpoint to let us through. It seems that our painful appearance, with our casts and blood-stained bandages, helped a little.