It happened 15 years ago. Together with the girl Vladimir Andreev, which was then 22 of the year, walked along the road. Walked by all the rules: on the side of the road, towards moving vehicles.
- I didn't even understand, how did it happen,He recalls. - Bright rear headlights, flying out on us (that is, on the side of the road) a machine. I managed to turn around, push the girl aside, when it hit me. Now I can only guess, how fast was the driver, dragged Vladimir on the hood about a hundred meters. To guess, in what condition did he drive, if, due to a turn, he was taken to the oncoming side. To guess, how cowardly he turned out to be, if you didn’t even slow down after that, how hit a man. But then Vladimir was not up to it. is he, stunned, lay on the ground, and witnesses to the accident came running to him. “I didn’t lose consciousness.”,He recalls. - I remember, leg pain was unbearable, I decided, that he broke them. But everything turned out to be much worse - the spine was damaged. Vladimir in critical condition was taken to the Borsky Central District Hospital, where the Bor doctors tried to stabilize him a little over a week, and, as soon as possible, transferred to the 39th hospital of Nizhny Novgorod. Complicated spinal fractures required immediate NITO surgery, but transport, Moreover, it was impossible to operate on him in such a serious condition. “I was in the hospital for three months.”, in an accident, I got a strong blow to the right,- said Vladimir. - They even wanted to remove the right kidney and the right eye - it literally fell out, but he was brought back, everything is back to normal. When I hit NITO, time was lost. Then I already collected information, talked with doctors - it was important to have surgery during the first 72 hours after the accident. For the first months after the accident, Vladimir could not sit, could not own the body below the neck, three months could not even talk (during surgery, ligaments were injured). Ahead was a difficult and very painful rehabilitation without any chance of success - the doctors suggested, that he won’t even be able to sit down. – At the first rehabilitation they tried to verticalize me,He recalls. - Belts were fixed on a special table and turned the table vertically. Three seconds - and I lost consciousness, the body was so unaccustomed to the vertical position. And yet the results were. Day after day young, stubborn body regained some of the lost skills. Weakened fingers could not hold the toothbrush - Vladimir tied it to the hand with a bandage, bye hand, and then fingers, not used to the load. Hands refused to hold even a razor - the guy forced himself to pick up not only a razor, but dumbbells, to strengthen weakened muscles. – And even started smoking on purpose. After all, to smoke, I needed to sit in bed, then change to a stroller, leave the room, hold a cigarette, light her, so as not to drop, then back - forty minutes process. Now i, probably, used to. You can get used to everything. I'm used to injecting myself, used to get distracted by business every day, so as not to feel constant pain ... As for pain, this is also a difficult question. I have a friend, also with disabilities. He has completely lost sensitivity. He was very surprised, when I found out, what i feel is leg pain. And I thought, what's better: feel pain or feel nothing at all?Now Vladimir though with difficulty, but can stand at the swedish wall, holding the bar. After the accident, the legs completely refused to hold the body, but over time he was able to walk on a walker 60 meters of the hospital corridor. – And now I’m walking along this corridor, and towards my attending physician: looking at paper, busy with something. Suddenly, he looked up at me., immediately came up and asked: “You can still stand?" - "I can,- I say. - What for?"-" Yes, I’m running for the camera now!" Is he, by the way, in my case, then defended my thesis. Then, in the hospital, students studied, so they drove me to the audiences as a visual aid,- Vladimir laughs. - I AM, by the way, I can not tell, that everything was depressing in the hospital. There were four of us in the room, all with humor, we joked all day. Though, of course, sometimes rolled, different thoughts climbed into my head ... I then thought about it, and now I'm sure: with topics, who got injured, a serious psychologist should work. Psychologists came to me, girls are very young, can, trainees. And after a couple of minutes we ran out of the house in tears. Not, no one was rude to them, they just could not stand my condition. Understand, that's just you were young, healthy guy with lots of plans and lots of ideas, you were a support for mom, grandmothers, you had a personal life. And then once - and there’s nothing of this. This is the hardest thing to take: life goes on, but she is now completely different! You need to reflash your consciousness and understand faster - so, like before, will no longer be. Although there are things, which do not change. Before the accident, Vladimir was not a couch potato, did not become him after. As a child, he did not go to kindergarten., spent almost all the time with his grandfather - an avid hunter and fisherman. From the age of five in the company of fishing rods, rifles and an old moped traveled through the Bor meadows, with neighboring boys he beat with sticks the next thicket of nettles and was, as he says, “A completely happy child without the Internet”. I got older, joined the "School of Survival", who worked at the Alisa TAC. – Without food or water, they went into the forest for several days, walked to Semenov, once wanted to jump with a parachute, but it didn’t work out - the weather was non-flying,– says Vladimir. He was lucky with the flying weather later, after the accident. Vladimir realized his dream - to make a skydive from a height of 4,000 meters. - When I arrived, the instructors looked at me and said: "You desperate guy!»It was unrealistic to get out of the plane through the open door, like stepping nowhere! I will definitely jump again. Five years ago Vladimir bought a car, I converted it to manual control and returned to the wheel. “These are my legs.”, so I'm watching the car, if something is wrong - immediately to repair,- tells our hero. There is where to go: along with friends from Invatura (community organization of people with disabilities) goes to nature, trying to get out with friends. He jokes a lot, smiles a lot. He lives. Because a broken spine is not a broken life.Natalia Romanova,
photo by the author
