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A movie was made about Sully landing a plane on the Hudson; it’s time for a movie about Shavarsh Karapetyan and the Miracle on Yeravan Lake. He is a world-record breaking swimmer who saved many lives when a trolleybus crashed into the lake, sinking to the bottom.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: September 16, 1976--
Born in 1953 in Armenia when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Karapetyan became a competitive swimmer at a young age, and later switched to finswimming, which is still swimming, but with fins. Some of the events involve lengthy breath-holding. He has broken 11 world records in the sport, winning numerous gold medals. And holy shit was he in the right place at the right time.
On September 16, 1976, when Shavarsh was 23 years old, he was at the end of his usual 12-mile run with his brother Kamo . . . with 45 pounds of sand strapped to his back! They were running alongside Yerevan Lake and heard the terrible sound of metal crashing through concrete as a crowded trolleybus with 92 people on board broke the barricade along the wall of the dam and hit the water, sinking in over 30 feet of water, 80 feet from shore. Shavarsh and Kamo dove, quite literally, into action.
The bus hitting bottom caused silt to explode, the visibility was near zero. But Shavarsh found the bus and broke the back window with his legs. He grabbed people from inside, which contained a pocket of life-saving air, and brought them to the surface. There, his brother Kamo, also an accomplished swimmer, ferried them to safety. Forty-six people died, but the brothers saved at least 20 lives that day while onlookers watched it unfold.
Shavarsh received multiple lacerations from the window shards, and because of the extreme cold and the presence of sewage in the water, he developed both pneumonia and sepsis. He was hospitalized for 45 days. The lung complications that followed, along with psychological trauma, had a negative effect on his swimming career, but he still managed one more world record.
Because USSR, the story was hushed for years because apparently Soviet buses don’t crash. After a Russian newspaper published the story in 1982, he became a national hero. Shavarsh’s new wife had no idea until she read the paper; he never told her about it. True to form, in 1985 Shavarsh happened to be near a burning building and without a second thought ran inside to pull people out, receiving severe burns in the process that required another lengthy hospital stay.
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Shavarsh Karapetyan is a true hero.
Well hot damn. Sucks that this isn't more common knowledge.