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He came to the police because of the money, served in the authorities for more than two decades, got in a terrible accident on a powerful motorcycle due to the fault of a drunken drug addict, but found the strength to start a new life, which without one leg became even more interesting for him. The motivating story of Russian parasnowboarding champion Vyacheslav Latyshev — in an interview with Sport.
“I was given a prosthesis a year and a half after the accident”
— Vyacheslav, what is the reason for your visit to Moscow?
— Both of my prostheses are broken. We recently went hiking in the mountains, the first one collapsed and we had to put on a snowboard. But it is not designed for such loads and has also become unusable. I took the old one, taped it to my leg and walked like that. I am solving the problem in an orthopedic clinic.
— How long is it enough?
< br>— Usually you get it with a one-year guarantee. I, together with a charity foundation, wanted to run a distance of 10 kilometers at the Moscow Marathon, but it didn’t work out.
— Are imported prostheses better?
— I haven’t come across them, but I used to order them in Perm, and there they make them for ordinary people. When they did the first one, I broke about six of them in six months. And when I started ordering from another Russian enterprise, I think Perm finally breathed calmly: Latyshev is gone, thank God. Because I slightly ruined their company.
— At the beginning of the year, Olympic figure skating champion Roman Kostomarov found himself in a difficult situation, his hands and ankles were amputated, but now he is already training. Have you been monitoring the situation?
— According to the news. Roman, of course, is great. But he is still an athlete. When ordinary people find themselves in a similar situation, they begin, roughly speaking, to drink. But he got out of it and wants to return to the sport. And I admire him. But there are nuances. He is very famous and had a lot of support. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my point of view. They quickly made him prosthetics and adjusted everything. A few months after the amputation, he began working on an exercise bike. For ordinary people it happens completely differently. After the accident, my prosthesis was made only a year and a half later. He weighed several kilograms, I had the feeling that he was filled with lead. Yes, Roman is great, but if he were not so famous, it would be a different story. When I went through all the stages in Chusovoy to receive disability, it was something.
— Nowadays people sometimes return from the SVO zone with various injuries. I know that the Russian Paralympic Committee is doing a lot of work with them to adapt to life and sports. What words would you find for them?
— You know, the military has a completely different story, there are a lot of strong people among them. I recently went on a hike in Sochi with people with amputations, lived in a tent with Seryoga, who stepped on a mine. And he said: I’m going on a hike of one and a half dozen kilometers in order to test the prosthesis. If I complete the out-and-back route, I will return to NWO. And other guys also want to come back, I have not yet seen anyone who would snot after such severe injuries. And one guy used to play hockey and now wants to go into sledge hockey. Both snowboarding and alpine skiing are quite accessible. I think that a year or two will pass and new athletes will come to competitions.
«The ambulance arrived after 2 hours, I was lying on the road all this time»< br>—How did you get into an accident?
— I’ve been riding a motorcycle for four years now, I had a Kawasaki, 600 cc. And when you turn a little at speed, the drive and adrenaline are just crazy. Six hundred cubic meters was not enough. I bought a new Kawasaki with an engine capacity of 1400 cc and 200 horsepower. I drove around a bit and the previous owner told me: I have some spare parts, take them. I went to Perm and met a BMW. Saturday, the road is wide, a GAZelle is walking ahead of me, there are only three of us at a distance of half a kilometer. The owner of the Behi passed the GAZelle and suddenly flew into my lane. I had a little time to react and avoided a head-on collision, but it went sideways towards me and crushed my leg. Even good defense couldn't save me. The ambulance arrived about two hours later, all this time I was lying on the road. And when the police arrived, they found him intoxicated with alcohol and drugs. The trial took place and the decision was made — I am guilty.
— How?
— So I asked the same thing, because I was sober and driving in my own lane? I challenged the decision and he was simply deprived of his rights for a year.
—You didn’t even receive compensation?
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— Nothing. I found on YouTube a second-by-second recording from the dash cam of the car that was following me. And the judge answers — yes, I’ll make such films for you myself. Apparently, that driver paid well, just like the traffic cops. Because when they took me away, they drew up a diagram of the incident in a completely different place. We stopped a couple of people and, naturally, they signed everything for them. I crossed the bridge and after that another 200 meters. And they fix everything on the bridge and also set me up for deprivation of my license. Allegedly he crossed a solid line and at the same time was driving without lights. I wrote a complaint against them to Perm, but they returned it to Dobryanka and, naturally, no one began to understand anything. And they sent me an unsubscribe.
— But you were a police captain, didn’t even that help?
— No, I never used my rights. And they wrote to me that I did not observe the lateral interval and crashed into the car myself. I decided to try it myself, will my leg fall off or not? I used to have a high opinion of our justice. Because many times I detained criminals for robbery or robbery and they were always jailed.
“I turn around and see that my legs are gone”
— After an accident, you are seriously injured leg, there is no ambulance — did you lose consciousness?
— No, I crawled to the side because the trucks were coming and I thought: if I haven’t crashed yet, now they’ll definitely crush me. He threw his legs over the bump stop, and then people stopped and tied the damaged one with a tourniquet. A note with time of dressing was stuck in the tourniquet and that’s it.
— How did you feel when your leg was actually gone?
— I didn’t understand at first, I see my hands are intact, my gloves and new jacket are torn. It was a pity for the equipment, it was great. And then I turn around and see that there is no leg. And the first thought is — how am I going to snowboard now? As they show in films, a man screams and blood splashes. I didn't have this, I didn't feel any pain. I called my wife and said: I didn’t make it to Perm. She asks: “Are you okay?” — Yes, my leg just fell off. She says: “Your jokes are moronic.” And then she cried.
I was taken to the hospital on a “loaf” on a stretcher, which, apparently, was intended for corpses. My legs suddenly became warm — I looked, and they were all covered in blood. The first day in the hospital intensive care unit, when I woke up, I thought I was dreaming. And then I look — there is no leg, this is not a dream. It was September 24, 2016, and the hospital in Dobryanka was just terrible at that time. You could really die there; normal treatment began only a week later in Chusovoy.
— Were you terribly depressed?
— The hardest part began later: before, my phone was ringing, almost incessantly, I tried to help everyone. When he got into an accident, he also continued to call for the first few days. And then almost all the calls stopped and for me this was the second psychological blow. You thought that you had a lot of friends, but most of them simply turned their backs on you.
— Someone forgot, and someone, perhaps, was even happy.— Yes, those who remained my friends later said that for many others it was a holiday — finally Latyshev got his.
— Who did you cross the path of like that?
— My colleagues were more happy, and this became a new challenge. And the third blow was when the trials began and no one from the police supported you. They even said that I was not entitled to insurance. This is generally always expected. I have 25 years of experience and I always told my employees: if something happens to you, then no one will need you. And in my own example, I felt it all inside and out. They didn’t even want to give me my allotted vacation. Fifty percent of people, if not more, turned their backs on me then. But now you meet them on the street and they say: Vyacheslav Yuryevich, we have always believed in you.
— In such cases, many families collapse. Has the support of your spouse become the most important thing in your new life?
— Yes, the family was very understanding, first of all my wife Natasha. She saw a program in which the senior coach of the Russian national team, Evgeny Vladimirovich Pronashko, talked about parasnowboarding and invited her to practice. And she suggested that I try.
—Don’t you dream that you are still healthy?
— Don’t you experience phantom pain?
— Yes, there was such a feeling in the first years two. Your leg hurts, but you realize that you don’t have it. Now this is gone, but if you want to scratch your leg, you find a point that, for example, is responsible for the little finger.
«He joined the police because of money»
— There are no feelings on the day when they crashed — September 24?
— No. Sometimes I remember that it’s your second birthday. By the way, there were so many preconditions then that nothing would happen. On Saturday we invited my mother-in-law to visit us for barbecue, and she said: I’m working, let’s do it on Sunday. Then I was supposed to leave in the morning, but a friend from Perm said that he could only be home in the evening. Then my motorcycle case fell off and I went back and found it. And the last thing — the road was being repaired there, a convoy of cars is coming and the worker asks me to slow down. If I had done this, I would not have had an accident, we would have missed each other. That is, there were so many signs that I would not end up in this place in those seconds.
— It seems like such accidents, but one catches the other.
— I call it fate, if it happens this way, then it has to be so.
— You had an accident and when were you engaged in luge sports?
— Andrey Gilev and I rode in a pair, became masters of sports and turned over on the track in Sigulda. Andrey's leg fell overboard, he hit a metal structure and received a serious fracture. And I was left without a partner. Andrey did not return to the sport, I competed on a single-seat sled for another season, and then stopped competing. He graduated from the Institute of Physical Education and worked as a coach for two years. I recruited four groups of kids and I liked the work. But then I received, relatively speaking, 60 rubles, and my friend in the police, a sergeant without a higher education, received 500. I had already gotten married, I had children, and I had to feed my family. I went as an intern and they gave me 250. Moreover, we worked for a day, and then the three of us rested, there was time for other activities. So I reached the rank of captain.
— Do you have a large pension now?
— About 27 thousand and I get about two thousand for disability.< br>
— Just something?
— Yes, 1800 with kopecks.
— A in parasnowboarding?
— I now compete for Moscow and at the “Russian Ski School” they pay me about 20 thousand. So that’s about 50 per month.
— How has the tragedy changed you?
— It gave me the opportunity to start living again. The second half of my life is much more interesting and eventful. In addition, I learned the opinions of people whom I previously trusted very much about myself. I like everything now.