Dragan Veličkov from Surdulica, a former police officer, has been living as a disabled person for 22 years, because he was left without both lower legs in the terrorist attack in Kosovo and Metohija. He was in the reserve police for a long time, and then he started working in the OUP Suva Reka, where he was caught in the war.
– On one of the tasks, more precisely when we started to help our colleagues whose vehicle ran into an anti-tank mine, the same thing happened to us. It all happened on May 24, 1999, near the village of Pecina.
ST
It was around 11 o’clock, my colleagues and I were standing in the center of Suva Reka, when we heard a call in the car on the radio station that our colleagues were asking for help and that they had been attacked. Without thinking, we went to help them. It took us about ten minutes to reach the village of Pećine, five kilometers away. When we arrived, there was still gunfire. We learned that three policemen from that village were going to Suva Reka for food, when they were attacked by KLA terrorists.
He hurried to help his colleagues, and also ran into a mine
We found two wounded police officers hiding between the vehicle and the house. Colleague Zoran Dodić, who was behind the wheel, was not saved. One vehicle continued towards the center of the village, and we stopped to pick up the wounded. We put them in the back of the vehicle and I sat with them, trying to give them first aid.
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ST
However, just a kilometer from there, our vehicle ran into a mine. As it was not armored, the vehicle disintegrated, and parts flew around. After that, there was silence – Dragan remembers.
The detonation threw Dragan off the road, so that his legs were raised in relation to his body. From the look of his pants, he was immediately aware that he had lost his legs. However, it was luck in the accident, because that position prevented him from bleeding completely.
KLA terrorists passed by the scene of the attack, but did not check for any surviving police officers.
– I lay in the mud, wounded and motionless, for two whole hours. Next to me lay dead colleagues. I heard someone grunting, and I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore.
I took off my belt and tied my thighs, I waited for help to come, wondering if he would come at all. I was helpless, and yet so strong, images of my loved ones passed before my eyes. In my left hand I had a life of 40 years, and in my right a gun and a bomb, if necessary, so that I would not surrender alive to the Shiptars.
ST
I heard the vehicle approaching, but I was not allowed to say anything. They were colleagues who did not see me. Then I waited for life or death. They came back. First I saw my colleague Ramadan Shabani, and then Zika. I started calling them and only then did I feel terrible pain. Thanks to them, I was born again – says Dragan.
Both of his legs were amputated in the hospital, but his fight had just begun
At the hospital in Prizren, Dragan had both legs amputated and a shrapnel wound under his left lung repaired. At that moment, says Dragan, the fight for his second life begins with great persistence.
– Regardless of the 100% disability, I knew that only by persistent exercise would I be able to put on my uniform again, getting used to prostheses. I’ve been thinking for a long time about how I’m going to spend my time without doing anything. I turned around and did administrative work in PS Surdulica.
In my left pocket, under my official badge, I carried a wallet, like an amulet, but it is not an ordinary wallet, but the one that saved my life. It also has a shrapnel hole. Geller would hit me right in the heart, but his wallet turned his path and that is why I now carry it and keep it as an amulet – says Dragan.
After Prizren, Dragan was treated at the military hospital in Nis. The elders, colleagues, as well as the Ministry of the Interior have not forgotten him, from the moment he was wounded onwards, they always helped, he says. He remembers that when they came to visit him at home on one occasion, as usual, he started to get up and greet the elder.
ST
Thanks to prostheses, he works and lives normally
He forgot that he had no legs and fell, which was very touching for him, his family and colleagues. A long journey of treatment, rehabilitation, getting used to wheelchairs and prostheses, all this is now behind Dragan and his family. Thanks to prostheses, but a strong will, Dragan’s life looks completely normal. He drives a car, is retired, spends time with his children, wife and grandchildren. He is a great lover of nature, so he is often on Vlasina or Čemernik.
By the way, all the male heads in the Veličkov family are police officers, for the third generation. Dragan is the winner of many recognitions, orders and letters of thanks. All of them were acquired for work in the service, defense of the country and the great post-war struggle to make their own and their family’s lives normal after his injury. 
Photo: ST
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