LATVIA: President Valdis Zatlers remembers his Chernobyl rescue work as a young surgeon

Record ID: 215775

  • Title: LATVIA: President Valdis Zatlers remembers his Chernobyl rescue work as a young surgeon
  • Date: 27th April 2011
  • Summary: RIGA, LATVIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Latvian) PRESIDENT OF LATVIA, AND FORMER RESCUE WORKER, VALDIS ZATLERS SAYING: "People had shaky hands. Some had eyelid tics. It seemed - how could it happen to a seemingly healthy person? But it could happen, if you work in stress for 60 days. And there obviously was stress, be it conscious or unconscious."
  • Embargoed: 12th May 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Latvia, Latvia
  • Country: Latvia
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,History
  • Reuters ID: LVA5UN0G24EYQ3OFP9BIIBXPBBRP
  • Story Text: Hundreds of Latvians, who helped as rescue workers in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, commemorated the 25th anniversary of the nuclear accident on Tuesday (April 26).
    The surgeon-turned-politician president of Latvia, Valdis Zatlers was also among the participants of the event in Riga - as likely the only state leader in the world who took part in the clean-up of the Chernobyl disaster.
    As a surgeon, Zatlers was sent to Chernobyl to offer help to the liquidators, as the cleaners were known, arriving at the accident site two weeks after the nuclear accident to work 30 kilometres away from the reactor.
    "Then I remembered all the lectures given to us at university, even those where I was asleep. It happened with all doctors who were there. Because the circumstances forced us to make every effort and mobilise all knowledge, once never thought of as useful. And it helped a lot. We could help each other and these soldiers who were common rural guys and did not really understand what was going on there," said Valdis Zatlers.
    Zatlers remembers that during the first months after the disaster the medical personnel were not yet fully aware of the consequences radiation has on human beings.
    The emergencies mostly consisted of wounds and abrasions caused by working in plus 30 degrees Celsius dressed in special clothes.
    "We received individual dosimeters only after a month and still after two weeks we found out that the bulk of them did not show the radiation dose. So we do not know exactly to what level of radiation we were exposed," Zatlers said.
    The doctor's duty was also to inform people about the danger radiation poses and to explain how to protect oneself from hazardous radiation.
    "It was very hard to persuade people not to apply for volunteer works - it was promised, that volunteers applying to work in places with bigger radiation doses would be sent home sooner. But it was not true - the dose was received, but they were not sent home. Nobody was sent home prematurely," remembered the president of Latvia.
    Zatlers spent 60 days close to the nuclear accident spot. After that he and the other doctors were sent home physically and psychologically exhausted.
    "People had shaky hands. Some had eye tics. It seemed - how could it happen to a seemingly healthy person? But it could happen, if you work in stress for 60 days. And there obviously was stress, be it conscious or unconscious," Zatlers said.
    After returning to Latvia, Zatlers did not operate for another month and half - the surgeon's hands were still shaking.
    Twenty-two years later and already the president of Latvia, Zatlers visited the places he worked after the nuclear disaster. He said it was hard to face the memories and quite surreal to see how time has stood still in Chernobyl.
    Some 6,000 Latvians took part in the Chernobyl clean-up operation. Radiation has negatively affected the health of many of the former liquidators. More that 3,000 are disabled and more than 900 Have since died.
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