04.02.2026 13:23
On February 6, 2023, while doctors at İnönü University Turgut Özal Medical Center in Malatya were treating Kenan Karadağ, who was rescued from the rubble with a severed leg, a second earthquake occurred. The moments when the doctors did not leave the hospital during the earthquake, holding the stretcher to prevent Karadağ from being harmed and continuing the treatment, touched hearts.
The 7.7 and 7.6 magnitude earthquakes centered in Kahramanmaraş caused significant destruction in 11 provinces. More than 50,000 people lost their lives, and the three-story apartment where Kenan Karadağ (62), who was caught in the earthquake in the Battalgazi district of Malatya, lived with his family and 10 relatives, collapsed. Karadağ, who was trapped under the rubble for 10 hours, was rescued with his leg amputated. While he was being treated at İnönü University Turgut Özal Medical Center Training and Research Hospital, a second earthquake centered in Elbistan occurred. During the earthquake, the doctors who were in surgery held Karadağ's stretcher to prevent the patient from being harmed by the earthquake, and those moments were captured on security cameras.
"THAT MEANT WE WOULD LET HIM DIE" Assoc. Prof. Dr. Okan Aslantürk, a faculty member of the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, who was the first to intervene with Kenan Karadağ after he was rescued from the rubble, stated that they came to the hospital as a team after the first earthquake. Aslantürk noted that they were caught by the second earthquake while they were taking Kenan Karadağ, who had one leg amputated, into surgery, saying, "Naturally, we did not leave the patient during the earthquake; we held him. After the earthquake stopped, we took the patient to the operating room and continued our work. He needed to be monitored; leaving him in that condition meant he would die. If we had left him at that moment, he would have fallen off the stretcher. I felt I had to hold him. My family was also at the hospital, waiting in my room; you can't think of them at that moment. Because one side of the patient's stretcher was open, we couldn't leave the patient's head."
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aslantürk, who explained that they stayed in the hospital for 2 months after the earthquake, said that he and his colleague slept on the couch in their hospital room. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aslantürk stated, "The hospital became our home."
"HE ALMOST FELL OFF THE STRETCHER" Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emre Ergen, a faculty member of the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, also reported that after the second earthquake, no one wanted to enter the hospital, and there was great fear and panic. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ergen said, "I need to motivate everyone there to be able to work; because there are waiting patients, and there is a working institution. I worked hard for their motivation. After overcoming the shock of the earthquake, everyone was already motivated. We continued to work. Those were very bad days. We had a patient who was trapped under the rubble during the first earthquake and had his leg amputated. His general condition was also very poor. We were trying to get him to the operating room as soon as possible. At that moment, the second earthquake occurred. Dr. Okan held him. He was almost going to fall off the stretcher. Dr. Okan covered him. Everyone was fleeing, trying to save their lives. We didn't think about ourselves at that moment," he said.
"THE DOCTOR SAID 'YOU ARE A PATIENT WHO WILL GO DOWN IN LITERATURE'" Kenan Karadağ, who clung to life thanks to the dedicated work of the doctors, said, "While I was in the emergency room, the second earthquake occurred. They showed that a doctor in a white shirt jumped on me at that moment. I watched this 4 months later. The stretcher is swaying back and forth. Everyone is in a panic, there is fear for life. Later, a doctor in a white coat comes, jumps on the stretcher, and holds me. After that, they take me down and say, 'He has passed away.' After 3 months in the hospital, I met Dr. Okan after I came out of intensive care. He said, 'You don't know what stages you went through; you were given a one in a thousand chance of survival, but you are a patient who will go down in literature. We did our best under the conditions of that day.' My kidneys had failed, my breathing had stopped, my heart had stopped several times, but it is divine will. They cut my leg below the kneecap while I was under the rubble, and later it became gangrenous, and the cutting continued upwards. In the end, the doctors said, 'Even if it's a small hope, if we cut it from the hip, maybe we can stop the gangrene,' and my leg was amputated from the hip," he said.
Yükseköğretim Kurulu Başkanı Erol Özvar, in a written statement, expressed his condolences to those who lost their lives in the February 6 earthquakes, saying, "May God protect our country and nation from all kinds of disasters." Özvar emphasized that universities and university hospitals did not cease to serve even for a moment under the most severe conditions of the disaster, mobilizing their scientific knowledge, health capacities, and human resources for the benefit of society, noting that higher education institutions played an important role in creating physical facilities for earthquake victims and conducting voluntary activities with every stakeholder from academics to students.