Valery Khodemchuk, who fulfilled his civic duty to the end, is the only employee of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant who died directly in the 4th power unit, where he found a grave under one hundred and thirty tons of concrete blockages. Who was this man and how was his fate? And which of his friends were the victims of a terrible accident on the tragic day of April 26?
Mother's grief
Valery was a caring son, regularly visiting his mother, who lives in the village of Krapivnoe, Kyiv region, in his small homeland. Spring is the time when villagers traditionally plant potatoes, so after the shift on Saturday morning, his whole family, along with their children, planned to go to help Anna Isaakovna in agricultural work.
Saturday 1986-26-04 Valery Khodemchuk's mother spent in anxiety, because her son never broke his promises. On Sunday morning, the alarm intensified, and by evening the first buses with evacuees appeared in the village. The daughter-in-law came into the house to Anna Isaakovnawith kids. She had to learn the terrible truth about the tragedy.
Her whole life flashed before her eyes: how all the wounded husband Ilya returned from the war. He was without a leg, with a burnt soul and serious physical ailments. Soon he died of his wounds, and she was left, a simple collective farm leader, with four children in her arms. Valera was the youngest, he was a year and a half old. He grew up quiet and shy, but early understood from the example of his parents what a sense of duty is. In relation to mother, relatives, Motherland.
Pripyat is a dream city
In the seventies, along with the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the city of Pripyat, founded on 1970-04-02, grew and developed, destined to become an atomic city. Places on the Pripyat River are notable for recreation. A blessed corner in which mushrooms in the summer, even an oblique mowing, fish in the river can be caught without attachments on a regular hook, and forest berries grow right under your feet. The favorite vacation spot of thousands of people was settled by new settlers.
New families were created in the young settlement, children were born more often than in other cities. By 1986, about fifty thousand inhabitants already lived in Pripyat, including 15,406 children. It was here that Valery Khodemchuk, whose biography is closely intertwined with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, arrived on a Komsomol ticket after serving in the Soviet army.
Work path, family
His career path began with the profession of a driver, but very soon the Komsomol member began working directly at a nuclear power plant, having gone from a boiler operator to a senior operator of the MCP RTs-2. Khodemchuk Valery Ilyich, born in 1951, enjoyed the respect of his colleagues, his portrait hung on the city Board of Honor. By the age of thirty, he already had two government awards: the Order of the Badge of Honor and the Order of Labor Glory, II degree.
I got attached to these places with my soul. He loved hunting, and Polissya is a paradise for lovers of such leisure. Here he started a family, having met a dark-haired girl with gray-green eyes. Valery Khodemchuk's wife, Natalya Romanovna, also worked at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as a pump station engineer. By the will of fate on April 22, the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary. The family brought up two children: by 1986, Oleg went to the second grade, and Larisa went to the sixth. The daughter inherited from her father curly hair, eye color, eyebrow expansion.
Life went on as usual, and the family made new plans. Nothing seemed to bode well.
Chernobyl accident
In December 1983, the 4th power unit was put into operation. Employees were convinced that modern technology, multiple locks and computer technology would protect them from any accidents. Alas, the creators of the new reactor did not provide protection important for people, and the chain of violations of its operating instructions tragically ended on the night of the standard tests with a terrible explosion of the power unit. Radiation dust spread through Ukraine, Belarus, 14 regions of Russia, covering the territory of Western Europe with a terrible cloud.
The Chernobyl accident occurred on the night of Saturday, April 26th. From the explosions (there were two of them), the metal structures of the top movedof the reactor, the pipes, the unloading side and the make-up compartment of the reactor collapsed, part of the building collapsed. Radioactive fragments hit the roof of not only the reactor, but also the turbine building. There was a partial collapse of the roof of the turbine hall (the second stage of the station), where the senior operator Hodemchuk was on duty.
From eyewitness accounts
134 people worked at the station at night. Those who were closer to the engine room recall that they perceived the explosions as impacts, mistaking them for the failure of turbine blades. An alarm went off, highlighting a problem at Unit 4. Everyone ran there. Most of all I was interested in the turbine hall, where there were flammable hydrogen and engine oil. Seeing the collapse of the roof, everyone tried to report information to the control room of the 4th unit, mistakenly believing that it was necessary to pour water to cool the reactor.
In the first minutes, no one understood the scale of the tragedy, because the old dosimeters could not measure the real power of the radiation level. The Chernobyl accident revealed the complete unpreparedness of the personnel for such a development of events. And towards the firefighters, who arrived at the fire seven minutes later, they were already carrying the burnt Vladimir Shashenok, an engineer at the Smolenskatomenergonaladka production enterprise, who had come on a business trip to monitor the progress of the night tests of the reactor. Until 1984, he directly worked at a nuclear power plant, resigning as a transfer to a commissioning company to work in his speci alty after graduating from an industrial technical school in Konotop.
Hewill die at six in the morning from burns, an unthinkable dose of radiation and a fracture of the spine. Being in shock from pain, being conscious, he constantly repeated: "There is Valera …". It was about his friend and the same age Valeria Khodemchuk.
The death of the senior operator of the MCP RC -2
Before the first explosion at the station, shaking began, engulfing the circular pumps. Valery Khodemchuk, without hesitation for a second, rushed to the danger to identify the causes of the emergency. He acted automatically, as his duty dictated, not seeking to shift responsibility to his subordinates. An explosion covered him, burying his body under one hundred and thirty tons of concrete debris. There was a failure between the entrance to the turbine hall and the main circular pumps. The commissioning engineer was the first witness to the death of a friend, rushing to his aid at the cost of his life.
Valery Khodemchuk and Vladimir Shashenok are the first victims of a terrible accident. In total, 108 people were hospitalized on the first day (another 24 on the second day of the accident). Some of them are those who tried to save the senior operator to the last. V. Perevozchenko, the shift supervisor, crawled along the console through the formed gap into the operator's room, but in vain. Nobody wanted to believe in the death of a friend. Senior mechanical engineer A. Yuvchenko tried three times to get into a dangerous place, suffocating from radioactive dust and smoke. The search did not stop until seven in the morning. Only the order to transfer the shift and leave the dangerous facility buried the hope of finding the body of the senior operator.
Other Chernobyl victims
Until todayno records are kept of those who died as a result of the disaster. WHO considers the official figure to be 4,000 people. It is known that on the day of the accident and within the next month, 31 people died, including the heroic firefighters who prevented a more terrible catastrophe. Employees of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were missing twenty-one specialists. 19 died from radiation sickness, having received a dose of radiation incompatible with life, they all accepted death with dignity.
Full list of dead NPP employees:
- Khodemchuk Valery Ilyich, buried under the rubble as a result of the explosion, the body was not found. Senior operator.
- Shashenok Vladimir Nikolaevich, died of radiation sickness, burns and a fracture of the spine. Engineer.
- Lelechenko Alexander Grigoryevich, died from radiation sickness, which developed as a result of four days of work to eliminate the accident, together with the workers of the electrical shop. Deputy shift supervisor.
- Shapovalov Anatoly Ivanovich, participated in the localization of the accident at the electrical appliances of the station. Electrician.
- Baranov Anatoly Ivanovich, who prevented the fire from spreading to other units. Electrician.
- Lopatyuk Viktor Ivanovich, stood in the way of the spread of fire. Electrician.
- Konoval Yuri Ivanovich, prevented the development of a fire. Electrician.
- Vyacheslav Stepanovich Brazhnik blocked the oil pipeline, preventing the fire from spreading. Steam turbine driver.
- Vershinin Yuri Anatolyevich, participated in extinguishing a fire in the engine room. Lineman.
- Degtyarenko Viktor Mikhailovich, in addition to extinguishing the fire, carried colleagues out from underblockages. Duty operator.
- Ivanenko Ekaterina Alexandrovna, did not leave her post as an employee of private security until the end.
- Klavdiya Ivanovna Luzganova, also a private security officer.
- Kurguz Anatoly Kharlampievich, rescued people from the rubble. Senior operator.
- Kudryavtsev Alexander Gennadievich, carried out an inspection of the reactor after the accident. Senior engineer.
- Novik Alexander Vasilyevich, participated in extinguishing a fire in the engine room. Lineman.
- Akimov Alexander Fedorovich, was engaged in determining the scale of the disaster and localizing the consequences. Shift supervisor.
- Perevozchenko Valery Ivanovich, at the cost of his life he saved his subordinates. Shift supervisor.
- Perchuk Konstantin Grigorievich, at the cost of his life, stopped the leakage of water from deaerators. Chief Engineer.
- Proskuryakov Viktor Vasilyevich, took all measures to prevent the spread of the accident. Senior engineer.
- Sitnikov Anatoly Andreevich, personally examined the emergency reactor. Deputy Director of the Chernobyl NPP.
- Toptunov Leonid Fyodorovich, took all measures at BShch-4 to localize the accident. Senior engineer.
One hundred and thirty-one people were diagnosed with radiation sickness, 80 of them died in the following years. Presumably another 60 thousand people (liquidators) suffer from other diseases due to high doses of radiation.
The funeral of the first victims of the accident
Shashenok V. N. found shelter in the village cemetery in Chistogalovka, the rest of the heroes,including firefighters and employees of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, were buried at the Mitinsky cemetery in Moscow, where all precautionary requirements were observed. This is due to the fact that most of them died in the Moscow Clinical Hospital No. 6. Today it is a shame to realize that domestic medicine has not done everything in its power to save people. There is an opinion about the fallacy of Dr. Gale's method used to treat radiation sickness. This is confirmed by the success of the Kyiv doctors, who, in turn, managed to save all their patients, except for Alexander Lelechenko, who received more than 1500 roentgens (lethal dose - 700).
The bodies wrapped in film were buried in wooden coffins sewn in zinc to avoid penetrating radiation. Later, the entire burial site was filled with concrete. After 11 years, justice was restored and a symbolic plate with a bust was installed at the resting place of the Chernobyl heroes at the Mitinsky cemetery. This is a kind of grave, in which Valery Khodemchuk seems to come to life in stone. Chernobyl took away from him the opportunity to be buried according to Christian customs.
Human memory
Every year, on the anniversary of the event, liquidators of the Chernobyl accident, relatives and simply caring people gather at the Mitinskoye cemetery. A memorial was created here in memory of the dead, a chapel was built. Mourning events are being held, to which the Chernobyl Union of Russia helps to come. The memorial is a wonderful monument of art, symbolizing a person who protected the world from a nuclear threat, as if covering every inhabitant of the planet Earth from a radiation cloud. And the words from Johncrown the feat of everyone lying under concrete slabs:
"There is no greater love than a man laying down his life for his friends."
From the time when Valery Khodemchuk was immortalized in this cemetery with a memorial plaque, his widow Natalya Romanovna came to Moscow every year, as if to meet her husband. Her soul is still not calm, because the body of a loved one was never interred. Yes, and the last moments of life remained shrouded in a secret known to him alone, which is unlikely to be solved. Photos of a disfigured mummy are circulating on the Web, allegedly the mutated corpse of a senior operator found on the territory of a nuclear power plant. But there is no official confirmation of this fact.
The Chernobyl accident happened thirty years ago. Natalya Hodemchuk could not come to Moscow for the thirtieth anniversary of the tragic events, which will remain on the conscience of those who did everything to quarrel the peoples of Ukraine and Russia. But relatives have one more place where they always try to get on the birthday of a dear person (March 24). This is the third power unit that stopped functioning only in December 2000.
Valery Khodemchuk as a symbol of courage and duty
The first commemorative plaque with a portrait of the heroic senior operator is installed inside the Chernobyl power unit, access to which is closed to everyone. The main intrigue is that she always has fresh fresh flowers. This gives hope that human memory is alive, and it is stronger than fear of the invisible force of radiation. It's not just people who do this.who personally knew this curly-haired, kind, but fair person, but also those who believe that the world rests on such people. Chernobyl is not only a tragedy, it is the greatest human feat and a warning to all the people of the Earth to what extent we are connected by a single invisible thread. Nuclear tragedy knows no bounds.
In 2008, Ukraine eliminated the injustice against Valery Khodemchuk and his role in the liquidation of the accident, posthumously awarding the Order "For Courage" III degree.
