What does it mean to be human?
It’s a question our society has wrestled a lot with recently, especially in this age of AI and with all the questions it brings about everything from art to employment to sheer consciousness. Of course, there are scientific definitions involving the differences between us and other animals. But recently, I came across a story about something that happened exactly fifty years ago next month. A story that, to me, illustrates what it truly means to be human in a way that goes behond scientific definitions or philoshopical debates.
It’s a story about a man you’ve probably never heard of. A man by the name of Shavarsh Karapetyan. I would like to share his story with you today.
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September 16th, 1976, was a chilly morning in the USSR. Nevertheless, the sunrise found Shavarsh, a 23-year old competitive swimmer, running alongside the shore of Yerevan Lake in modern-day Armenia with a 44-pound pack on his back…and steam coming out his ears.
Despite the fact that he had broken ten world records and was already considered one of the fastest swimmers in the world, Shavarsh had recently seen his dream of winning the Olympics taken from him. Maybe it was because he was Armenian, or maybe it was because his family lacked the right connections. Either way, Shavarsh had been rejected by the Soviet Union’s swim team. Instead of quitting, though, Shavarsh resolved to train even harder. Nothing would stop him from competing in the Olympics one day.
What Shavarsh didn’t know was that he was actually training for something far more important.
His brother, Kamo, and his coach, Lipo, were running with him that morning when they heard a horrible screeching sound. A trolleybus in front of them had careened off a bridge and fallen into the cold, dirty water of Yerevan Lake.
In just a few seconds, the bus and its 92 passengers had plunged below the surface.
Shavarsh said about that moment, “There was no other choice...I knew that it wouldn’t be right if the world’s fastest underwater swimmer was there and didn’t even try to help.”
He acted immediately, jumping into the water and swimming to the rapidly sinking trolley, already more than 30 feet deep. Using a rock, he broke one of the windows to the bus and started pulling people to the surface, where Kamo and Lipo would swim them back to the shore so the paramedics who were arriving at the scene could attempt to revive them.
The choice to dive put Shavarsh in cold, dirty water. He had little visibility, was rapidly getting exhausted, and had injured himself pulling people through the broken glass window. But what mattered in that moment, more than the career he knew he was likely throwing away, was saving the people who could be saved.
He gave himself 25 seconds for each person, not stopping to check whether the person was still alive before bringing them to surface. Kamo and Shavarsh estimate they pulled between 30 and 35 people to the shore before they told Shavarsh that there was likely no one else alive down there. Even when rescue workers begged him to stop, he kept diving.
Twenty people were able to be revived because of Shavarsh’s quick action. Twenty-six others were able to swim up themselves thanks to the window he’d smashed.
The cost to Shavarsh? A 104-degree fever. Multiple lacerations and major blood loss. Sepsis and pneumonia in both lungs. 46 days in the hospital in critical condition. He got so sick, his doctors often said that only his Olympic-level training had kept him alive. And due to Soviet censorship, he received almost no notice or publicity for what he’d done.
Despite this, Shavarsh still didn’t give up on his dream. After recovering, he continued to train and was even able to set one final world record. But his body was never quite the same…and he was never able to swim in the Olympics. He was forced to retire, knowing it was both dangerous and he got sick any time he was in the water. But instead of being bitter, he opened a shoe shop…and 9 years later, demonstrated his courage and caring once again when he rushed into a burning building and pulled multiple people out.
When someone once asked Shavarsh why he did it all, he answered:
“Anyone can find himself in a place where somebody needs help, and more than once, too. The main thing is to remember what makes you human.”
As Shavarsh further explained it, “In difficult moments like this, your love for fellow humans grows even stronger. Our whole lives, we all owe everything to each other.”
What does it mean to be human? I think stories like this can answer that question. To be human is to choose to care about other people, even when it comes at a cost to yourself.
To be human is to choose to love.
I hope you enjoyed reading about Shavarsh as much as I did. As we come to the 50th anniversary of his heroic day, I hope we can all choose to be just a little bit more human…and in doing so make the world just that much brighter.