Once, thirty-five years ago, a Soviet athlete gave up sports forever. It would seem that it is an unremarkable story, there are thousands of them in the sports world. But this is only at first glance. Because we are talking (get ready to count!) About the 11-time world record holder, 17-time world champion, 13-time European champion, 7-time USSR champion. Athletes with such a "track record" in the entire history of sports can be counted on one hand. And now, at the peak of his form, at the zenith of fame and career, he suddenly leaves the big sport to open a small shoe-making workshop in Moscow a few years later. This man in the full sense of the word buried his talent in the ground, or rather, drowned him in the icy and dirty water of Lake Yerevan. But even the most ardent fans will hardly turn their tongues to reproach him for this.
… On that day, September 16, 1976, a trolleybus passing along the dam fell into the water in Yerevan. Ninety-two passengers were buried alive at a depth of ten meters. All of them were doomed to inevitable death, if not for one circumstance: it was at this time that multiple world diving champion Shavarsh Karapetyan was making a training run along the lake. Subsequently, experts admit: no one in the world simply physically could have done what Shavarsh did then. Diving into the water muddied by the fall of the trolleybus, he smashed the rear window with his feet and began to pull out the unconscious passengers. Over twenty minutes in ice water. Twenty lives saved. In fact, he pulled more people out of the trolleybus, but not everyone was saved. When Shavarsh once again emerged to the surface,passers-by crowded on the dam saw that his whole body was torn apart by fragments of a broken window.
Then, to the question - what was the worst then? - Shavarsh replied: “I knew for sure that, despite all my training, I would only be enough for a certain number of dives. There, at the bottom, visibility was zero, so I grabbed a man by touch and swam up with him. Once I emerged and saw that in my hands … a leather seat cushion. I looked at her and realized that the price of my mistake is someone's life. Then I dreamed about this pillow more than once at night."
Such a feat cost him severe bilateral pneumonia, complicated by general blood poisoning - city sewage was discharged into the lake. Doctors with great difficulty saved his life, but there was no question of returning to the sport: Shavarsh Karapetyan became disabled.
He ruined his outstanding swimming talent forever. But the gift of love for people, just as generously given to him by nature, he multiplied many times over these terrible twenty minutes.
PS Shavarsh lives in Moscow. Long years to this PERSON!
