From 117 commission examinations of perished hostages that were made available, the authors learned that in 68 cases there was no medical care at all, 5 child cases among them. (Appendix 18).

6. Not all the hospitals were ready to admit the victims:

“ … we were taken to a hospital, but there they refused to admit us, saying that they knew nothing. Then they took us back to the TC where they put us in a bus and taken, as it turned out later to hospital No.13” (Alla Pavlova,  Appendix 6.8);

“ … Upon our arrival at GKB No.1, the guards refused to let us into the premises” (O. V. Belyakova,  Appendix 17).

“ Nobody informed me that former hostages would be delivered to our institution”

(head of Science Department of Acute Poisonings with the Sklifosovsky scientific research institute E. A. Luzhnikov (Appendix 21).

7. The fact that there was no need to involve military physicians in the special operation is explained by involvement of ambulance teams that are qualified to “give medical care to the victims with maximum efficiency”. However, this statement is contrary to the fact, that only 10% of ambulance teams were specialized and the qualification of the others (including 155 composed of medical assistants) taking into consideration the specific character of large scale medical care is certainly inferior to that of military medical experts. The participants of the events witness about cases, when poisoned hostages who were still alive were taken for the dead:

“ … One man was saved literally at the last moment: we saw a body lying on the steps of the staircase of the building with its head covered with an army-type jacket, some of the rescuers must have pulled him out of the building, then seeing that the man was dead, left him on the porch. But we felt the pulse – there were weak beats! And we have saved the hapless guy!..” (Vadim Mikhailov,  Appendix 6.8).

“… The attendants seized the dead body by the hands and legs and carried it to a special room… I saw with my own eyes how a young woman who had been thought to be dead waggled her head. We could not help crying  — But she is alive!  The hospital attendant made a sign of cross on his chest. The woman was immediately put on a wheel stretcher and taken to the reception room. And we should not rule out that this was not a single case with those who had been thought to be dead”. (Yury Snegiryov,  Appendix 6.8).

“ … When our child [14 year old Kristina Kurbatova] was delivered to the hospital, nobody examined her condition. The doctor on duty alluded to the fact that he had been informed of delivery of a “corpse” and refrained from examination. At the same time he declared that “… corpse examination was not within the range of his duties …” (V. V. Kurbatov,  Appendix 6.7).

Head physician of GKB No.7 Afanasyev said that involvement of army medics was essential: “they could be very useful in giving first air to the victims because of their experience and skills in providing first aid (pre-hospital), and could do professional pre-hospital sorting out of patients according to their injuries at the initial stage”.

The aforementioned facts confirm the conclusions made by SPS Public Commission about the poor performance of officials and services who were in charge of arranging first aid and evacuation of the victims the TC:

- inadmissibly long wait for medical assistance and transportation of hostages to medical institutions;

- absence of an authorized medical coordinator at the exit from the TC;

- lack of duly equipped temporary accommodations for resuscitation of the victims on site by efforts of several teams;

- timely, unimpeded and uninterrupted movement was not provided for ambulances, buses and intensive care ambulances;

- the mass transportation of the victims was carried out in the buses without the required number of accompanying doctors, medical assistants and rescuers having sufficient resuscitation skills;

- absence of due interaction between security forces, rescuers and the personnel of the ambulances;

- no army medicine experts who have the knowledge of specific methods and skills were involved;

- the question of uniform distribution of the victims over Moscow medical institutions was neglected.

“ … The work of the special services was professional … From this point of view the operation deserves high estimation. But the further events, especially the way medical care was arranged,— as you see, was a failure. What’s the use of arguing?” (Chairman of the State Duma Security Committee V. Vasilyev, «МК» newspaper dated 23.10.2003)

As to the resolutions issued by the Office of Public Prosecutor on refusal to initiate criminal proceedings dated 31.12.02. (Appendix 21) for lack of data on non-performance or undue performance by the officials responsible for organization of medical assistance, they are mere declarations.