Shavarsh Karapetyan

Who can be named a hero? What does a hero do? Who are the heroes of our time? These are the questions you undoubtedly will have to answer being fed with stories about superheroes or people who have become very rich amazingly fast. Real heroes are very close by, we should simply look intently at doctors, teachers, policemen, firefighters, workers who do good every day without attaching so much importance to their deeds. But sometimes a passer-by becomes a hero simply because he is bold and is not indifferent to people.

For me such a hero is Shavarsh Karapetyan, a sport diver, world record holder for eleven times, world champion for seventeen times, European champion for thirteen times, Honored Master of the former Soviet Union, the champion of the USSR for seven times. Because of the number of his titles and medals he can be named a sports hero but I would like to tell about his heroic deed. On the 16th of September, 1976, an overcrowded trolleybus fell into the river from the dam in Yerevan, Armenia. Ninety-two passengers were doomed to death. Shavarsh was jogging along the shore of the lake at that time. A bit later some experts admitted that nobody in the world even being physically strong could have done what Shavarch had done then. He dove without any hesitation , kicked the window and began to drag out the passengers who had already lost consciousness. He spent twenty minutes in icy water. He saved twenty lives. He, in fact, dragged out more people but unfortunately they did not survive. Being asked later what the worst thing was for him then, he answered that he had realized that he would be able only to save few lives, so he dove and dove time after time. And once because the visibility was very bad he came to the surface with a leather cushion in hands. That mistake became his nightmare for a long time.

He went down with pneumonia complicated by the general blood-poisoning. He spent forty-five days being unconscious. Doctors saved his life with great difficulty but he could not go in for sport any more. Shavarsh Karapetyan became disabled. His talent of a swimmer and a diver was destroyed but his gift of love to people was increased by those twenty minutes in icy water.

In 2014 a corpulent elderly man was carrying the Olympic Flame about Kremlin in Moscow. Spectators noticed he did it with great difficulty. Suddenly the flame went out and people started to worry. Somebody helped to burn the flame again and the man managed to finish his distance. The following day the Internet blew up. The shame! Who was that unlucky person who was not able to overcome the wind? It was Shavarsh Karapetyan in the hands of whom the flame went out.

I consider him to be a real hero with superpower and an extraordinary ability to love life and to love people. Since the day I read his story, one question has been worrying me:" What would I do in such a situation?" I think that the Olympic flame going out was symbolic. It was a tribute paid to Shavarsh Karapetyan for his courage, for his greatness.