On September 16, 1976, Shavarsh Karapetyan, a 23-year-old world champion finswimmer, had just finished a grueling 21-kilometer training run near Lake Yerevan in Armenia when he heard a crash that would change his life forever. A trolleybus had veered off a dam and plunged into the lake, sinking fast with dozens of passengers trapped inside.
Without hesitation, Karapetyan rushed to the water, stripped off his clothes, and dove into the cold, polluted lake. Despite limited visibility and the danger, he swam around 5 kilometers to reach the submerged bus. Finding no open windows, he kicked out the rear window, badly injuring his legs in the process.
For the next 20 minutes, he repeatedly dove down, rescuing one person after another. He pulled 37 people from the wreckage — 20 of them survived, and nine more escaped through the window he had shattered.
Karapetyan’s heroism came at a personal cost. He developed severe pneumonia and lung damage from the rescue and spent three weeks in the hospital before he could walk again. Remarkably, the following year, he returned to competition, won one last gold medal, and broke his 11th world record before retiring from professional swimming.
Shavarsh Karapetyan is remembered not just as a world-class athlete, but as a true hero who risked everything to save others.
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