MAN AS AN INSTRUMENT OF THE PROVIDENCE The event we are going to talk about happened in 1976 in Yerevan, the capital of the then Soviet republic of Armenia. On a sunny morning in September a trolleybus moving across the dam of a local reservoir swerved off course and plunged down with dozens of commuters trapped inside… Shavarsh Karapetyan happened to be jogging nearby that morning. A many times world champion in underwater swimming, Shavarsh quickly figured out what was happening and jumped into the ice-cold water. Defying the laws of physics, he broke the glass windows of the sunken vehicle and started pulling out the people trapped 10 meters below… 20 minutes and numerous cuts later, Shavarsh Karapetyan had already saved 20 passengers being helped on the surface by his brother Kamo. Taking one short gulp of air Shavarsh dived again… Already losing consciousness, he pulled ashore the last passenger. Experts later said Shavarsh was the only one in the whole world who had ever done such a thing. The following morning he was diagnosed with general blood contamination and pneumonia, which is only natural for someone having spent so much time in ice-cold water and having suffered so many cuts. After a lengthy recuperation period, Shavarsh Karapetyan resumed his sporting activities winning another world championships. In 1981 he was forced to quit swimming becoming an enduring symbol of heroism both in sports and in everyday life. With all due respect and admiration for the man’s courage and perseverance, however, it’s hard to miss the very important fact that only one person in a city of a million people was able to prevent a tragedy, that he somehow happened to be at the right place at the right time! Was that a mere coincidence? Skeptics and materialists talk about chancy occurrences and calculate how often things like this may happen. And if this is more than just a unique coincidence, then what is it? There is a moment of glory in everyone’s life – at least that’s what the wise men of old teach us. A moment when you do what is prescribed you by God... A moment when you become an instrument of the Providence… One of the people Shavarsh Karapetyan saved that morning said: “I was saved by God!” Well, maybe it was a divine providence that Shavarsh chanced to be jogging near the dam that fateful morning, but even if it was, Shavarsh Karapetyan is still a hero because it is always up to us to choose between action and inaction. That’s exactly what human freedom is really all about! Freedom means one’s readiness to give up everything that is vane and false to find one’s true calling. There is one more truth we can learn from Shavarsh’s heroism – that human societies need heroes. Boys need someone to look up to as they grow up. In recent years the bookstores and television have been inundating us with a veritable avalanche of supermen most of them conceited, arrogant, selfish and violent. Shavarsh Karapetyan is different; he is a real hero, self-effacing and always ready to sacrifice his life for other people’s good. That fateful morning in September split Shavarsh’s live in two. An 11-time world record holder and 17-time world underwater swimming champion, he could continue working as a coach, but it just so happened that his sporting achievements were all forgotten and so he had to find himself an engineering work at a local factory. Shortly after he took his family abroad, but feeling out of his element there, returned home. In 1993 Shavarsh Karapetyan came to Moscow, without money and without a place to live in. To survive he started desperately looking for a job, which proved to be harder than saving people from a sunken trolleybus… He finally lucked out though opening a shoemaking facility, which is now one of the best in Moscow. There are just a handful of heroes in this world who can boast saving 20 lives. Shavarsh Karapetyan is one such hero. Driven by the omniscient Providence, he courageously waded in saving the lives of all those people who would otherwise have perished trapped inside that sunken trolleybus on the slimy bottom of the lake in Yerevan…
Posted on: Wed, 03 Jul 2013 20:14:27 +0000
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