How we lost a leg. True story: “I lost my leg in an accident five years ago, but I don’t regret anything. In general, the prosthesis is beautiful. Out of the shadows

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Lose a leg, find yourself How do Russian "voluntary amputees" live - people who want to lose a limb. Report by Sasha Sulim

The term Body Integrity Identity Disorder or BIID in Western medicine describes people who want to get rid of their limbs, also known as voluntary amputees. Those who have this disorder perceive the limb as a foreign object; amputation is a way for them to feel "whole"; often these people deliberately harm themselves in order to get rid of a leg or arm. Scientists began to study BIID only in the last 15 years and only in Western countries - however, there are voluntary amputees in Russia, where this problem is not being studied at all. Meduza correspondent Sasha Sulim tells how their life works. Audio version of the text.

When Denis (the name was changed at the request of the hero) was four years old, he had a strange dream, which he still remembers. Dressed in black leather clothes, he knelt before an unfamiliar woman, and she beat him with all her might with a whip; but the main thing is that in a dream Denis had no legs. That night, the boy woke up in pain from the blows and intense arousal at the sight of his stumps - he realized his sexual nature only many years later.

As a teenager, while his parents were at work, Denis liked to portray a disabled person: he tied up his leg, made a prosthesis, walked on crutches around his apartment in St. Petersburg, fantasized how and under what circumstances he could lose a limb. This game aroused sexual arousal in the boy, which mixed both the attraction to people without a leg and the pleasure of realizing his own helplessness. Then there were the first thoughts about losing limbs for real.

As a child, 45-year-old Igor from Kirov also realized his desires (the name and city were changed at the request of the hero), who grew up in an ordinary Soviet family: his father worked at a factory, his mother worked in a hospital. Once, when he was ten, the boy climbed a tree: “From the feeling of emptiness under my feet, I got an orgasm for the first time in my life. I think my father even noticed something, because he asked: did you happen to be pleased? But, of course, I didn’t confess to him.”

His relatives and friends that he is interested in people with amputated legs, Igor still does not admit. “If my wife finds out about this, I have no idea what I will do with myself. I don't think I'll survive it," he says. He calls his attraction a "demonic stigma" from which he cannot get rid of. Igor fights him, going to work (he has his own shoe repair business) or his favorite hobby, hunting. According to him, even simply observing animals distracts him from obsessive thoughts. “Sometimes [people] sit for hours watching ducks or wild boars. I can’t do this, I need everything to change, I can’t sit in one place, - says Igor. “Succumbing to temptation and losing a leg means losing the opportunity to do what you love and turn into a burden for your own family.”

Obstacle to Happiness

For the first time, a disorder associated with attraction to people without limbs was described by a psychiatrist and one of the founders of sexology, Richard von Kraft-Ebing, in his work Sexual Psychopathy, published in 1906. The term 'Body Integrity Disorder Syndrome' (BIID) appeared about a hundred years later - it was first used by Columbia University professor of clinical psychiatry Michael Furst in his 2004 study 'Amputation drive: paraphilia, psychosis, or a new type of personality disorder'. .

Eight years later, in 2012, Furst, along with his colleague Karl Fischer, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, released another paper on a rare disorder: “Body Disorder Syndrome: A Persistent Desire to Become Disabled.” In it, scientists offer a definition: the syndrome of violation of the integrity of the perception of one's own body is a little-studied condition in which the physical picture of the body does not correspond to how a person perceives it psychologically.

In a conversation with Meduza, Furst called this medical phenomenon extremely rare, but at the same time common enough to not doubt its existence. “In all the time that I have been studying this disorder, I have interacted with approximately 150 patients suffering from BIID. But I’m sure there are thousands and thousands of them in the world,” says First, noting that the development of the Internet and social networks has greatly facilitated both his research and the lives of his patients. - Previously, people suffering from BIID thought they were the only ones in the world. They were very lonely and suffered madly from their dissimilarity to others. Knowing that you are not alone can even save lives in some cases.”

Ksenia Shishkova for Meduza

For his first study, published in 2004 in the journal Psychological Medicine, Furst spoke with 52 people who admitted to dreaming of having one or both limbs amputated. The scientist found them on specialized forums; All interviews were conducted by telephone on condition of anonymity. The vast majority of these people were men (there were only four women - and one transgender). Nine people admitted to having already amputated their legs or arms, and six brought themselves to the operation on their own, using life-threatening methods - using an electric saw or dry ice that causes tissue death. Three managed to persuade the doctor to amputate their healthy limb. Several people said that after the operation they felt much better and got rid of the obsessive state; none of the respondents had other psychiatric disorders (however, as Furst points out, the syndrome he identified can cause severe depression). All 52 people named the purpose of voluntary amputation the desire to find their own identity.

A more precise quantitative analysis, according to Furst, is unlikely to become possible in the near future. “You can’t just go around 20 or 200 thousand people with the question: do you want to amputate something for yourself?” he explains.

Another scientific paper on "voluntary amputees" was published in 2012 by several specialists from the University of Amsterdam. They interviewed 54 people who admitted that they suffer from BIID and want to amputate or paralyze their limbs in order to feel like “full people” and find inner harmony with their body.

With most of the survey participants, scientists communicated anonymously and only online, and data was collected using detailed questionnaires; only five agreed to meet the scientists in person. The authors of the article note: in order to include in the study as much as possible " voluntary amputees”, had to abandon the idea of ​​offline communication, physical examination and even telephone conversations. As scientists write, people with such a rare disorder make contact with great difficulty, fearing that their identity may be revealed. Under such conditions, it is almost impossible to verify the sincerity of the objects of study and the truthfulness of their answers. In one way or another, each of the respondents (as in the case of Furst's study, the vast majority were men) associated their first amputation fantasies with early childhood; one in two experienced sexual arousal when they imagined that one day they would become an “amputee”. The University of Amsterdam did not speak to Meduza, citing journalists' excessive interest in their work.

One of the main tasks of the Dutch was to ensure that the syndrome was recognized by the medical community - and the disorder would be included in all official medical classifications. With the proposal to add BIID to the list of mental and behavioral disorders in the new version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) in last years Professor Furst also speaks. Work on a new classification should be completed in 2018 - and in its draft version there is a mention of a similar syndrome. In total, as of January 2017, 7186 adjustments have already been proposed in the ICD-11, two of which relate to mental disorders. They also tried to introduce BIID into the American DSM-5 classification of mental disorders, which was last updated in 2013, but so far it has not worked out.

Psychotherapist, MD, leading researcher at the Serbsky Center Lev Perezhogin points out that the current International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) has a section “Other disorders of habits and drives”, which, in particular, describes behavioral disorders that “ characterized by repetitive actions that have no clear rational motivation, cannot be controlled, and usually cause harm to the patient and others. “There would be a person, but there would be an article,” ironically Perezhogin, recognizing that such cases have been studied very little - and therefore are described in very general terms.

In the 2000s, journalists also began to take an interest in BIID. In 2003, at the Los Angeles Film Festival, the documentary "The Whole" was shown, the main characters of which told how and why they tried to get rid of their limbs. Three years later, one of the largest American television channels ABC posted on its website a material about three voluntary amputees. One of them sat in his car for six hours with his feet in dry ice, and then independently got to the nearest hospital using the manual control that he had previously installed on the car (this is used by disabled people who cannot control the car with their feet). After the operation - both his legs were eventually amputated - obsessions disappeared, but, as the man admitted to reporters, not a day goes by that he does not regret what he did. Another heroine twice unsuccessfully tried to amputate her legs, and the third almost decided on an illegal operation in the Philippines: local doctors offered him to cut off good leg for 10 thousand dollars.

Reports with similar stories have also appeared in recent years on the Fox News channel, in the British tabloids Mirror and Daily Mail, in the American Daily Star and the New York Post. All of them featured people who dreamed of hurting their limbs - and who felt relieved when they succeeded; The New York Post publication even gave an example from the 18th century, when an Englishman who came to France demanded that the doctor amputate his leg. When the doctor refused, the man shot himself in the limb and simply forced the physician to complete what he had begun. Returning home, he sent the doctor money and a letter in which he explained that his leg was an obstacle to his path to happiness.

To the best of Meduza's knowledge, BIID research has not been conducted in Russia. The concept of the syndrome of violation of the integrity of the perception of one's own body in Russian is found almost only in translated articles (with rare exceptions); neither scientists nor doctors use it.

Amputi, Devoti and Wannabi

"Voluntary amputees" find each other in closed groups and on forums, and their communication is replete with slang borrowed from English: amputees (these are those who have already lost limbs), vannabi (those who dream of amputation), devoti (those who is sexually attracted to amputees). For this article, Meduza talked to several dozen subscribers of VKontakte communities who are somehow connected with the topic of amputations.

However, as is the case with anonymous scientific studies, it is often impossible to verify how serious users are when they talk about their aspirations for amputation. Activists of various thematic groups, often taking surnames like Vannabko or Vannabov on social networks, sometimes write about amputations even too openly. Their pages are filled with photographs of semi- and naked people without arms and/or legs, often of a pornographic nature. When communicating with a Meduza correspondent, most of them stopped the correspondence when they were offered to change the format of the conversation - for example, by phone. With the main characters of the material - Denis and Igor - "Medusa" repeatedly talked on the phone and Skype.

Now, when he is already over forty, Denis explains his childhood experiences with a strong impression from an unusual meeting: once, when he was still very young, a man came to their apartment in the center of Leningrad with wooden leg. “The sight of this man frightened me and interested me at the same time. Then the erotization of disabled people took place - this is one of the protective mechanisms of our psyche, - explains a man who became so interested in psychology that he studied it at the university, and for the last 15 years has been working in his specialty in the United States. “Since then, I have dreamed of having my leg amputated or both.”

“A strong impression of meeting a person without a leg can become a decisive factor in the formation of sexual deviation in a child under six years old,” confirms Nadezhda Kuzmina, a psychoanalyst and co-author of the Modern Psychoanalysis portal. “At this age, it is very difficult to distinguish between where a child fantasizes and where he just plays, so in most cases it is almost impossible to trace the first sprouts of a psychological disorder.” Furst's research confirms that more often than not, BIID really grows out of childhood experiences - and often an encounter with an amputee becomes the reason for the onset of the disorder.

Ksenia Shishkova for Meduza

According to Denis, he spent years wondering if he was crazy - and eventually came to the conclusion that he was not. He calls the disorder his “feature” – and explains: “Wannaby needs psychotherapy. But if a psychotherapist believes that he can save a person from the desire to amputate, then he is not a professional and has no idea what he is talking about. It's like convincing a black man that he's white. Perhaps it is possible, the question is how healthy such a position is. Therapy, according to the man, is needed in order to learn how to live with BIID - but it still looks like life in prison. The release would be amputation, for which the man is not yet ready to go. “There are, of course, limiting factors. First, the parents, he explains. “They don’t know about my desire, I protect them.”

Other obstacles are of a purely technical nature. “If my insurance company finds out that the amputation was done not for medical reasons, but at my request, then they will sue me, and I will be doomed to poverty and ruin,” says Denis. “And the chances of finding a doctor who will agree to carry it out are also zero.”

A few years ago, Denis went to Europe with the hope that he could find the right specialist. At that moment, it seemed to him that he was one step away from his dream. “It was a terrible period of my life, I really hoped that they would help me, but this never happened,” the man recalls. - After all this, I was already ready to build a guillotine. If someone had helped me with this then, I would have already been without a leg. The instinct of self-preservation prevented me from completing the work on my own: “I got used to it, I learned to live with it,” says Denis, who calls himself “a slave of his desire.”

Dream operation

“Surgery is a drastic measure,” Furst says. “Of course, this immediately raises the question of ethics.” At the same time, today amputation operations are, according to researchers, almost the only examples of effective treatment. Furst himself supports this method only as a last resort: if nothing else helps - and if it is reliably established that the patient is aware of his actions. However, according to the scientist, it is impossible to exclude the possibility that a person will regret what he did, even in this case.

According to Russian law, an amputation without medical indications can be recognized by a court as intentional infliction of bodily harm - up to eight years in prison. However, in groups devoted to amputations, one can often find sentences with a similar wording: “Full service. Expensive, but reliable, legal and confidential.” The author of one of these ads - he introduced himself as Victor from Rostov - says that he himself is not going to cut anyone off anything, but he can advise in detail and for money on all issues related to amputation. Victor once studied at the Faculty of Psychology; his diploma was about attraction to "unconventional girls": "It's easy to write when the patient is you," he explains. Then he met his first wannabi and realized that he could earn extra money on this topic.

According to Victor, there are many scammers among his colleagues. “I immediately tell [clients] that if they come across an ad here [on VKontakte] that says: ‘Give me money, and we will saw off your leg,’ I don’t advise writing - this is either crooks or crime.” More realistic options, according to Victor, are to simulate terrible pain in the leg, or better, inflict at least a minor injury on yourself. “The most working scheme is to find a surgeon and agree with him (for money or for a bottle of cognac) that on a certain day you will be brought to him with a leg injury incompatible with life, and he will amputate it in a predetermined place,” he continues, explaining that wannabi usually know exactly where they need to cut. - But this person still has to get this injury himself. Doctors run the risk of not only losing their license, but also going to jail.”

One of Meduza's interlocutors, Tamara, a resident of Blagoveshchensk, acted something like this (the name and city have been changed at the request of the heroine). She was amputated five years ago left leg. A 35-year-old woman working as a hairdresser went to this operation for two decades: first, she removed the phalanges of her fingers on her own, then she received a minor injury, introduced an infection into the wound and achieved amputation for medical reasons. As she recalls now, after the operation she experienced "relief" and "found herself." Now she continues to work by profession from home, brings up her twelve-year-old daughter (after the amputation, her husband left Tamara) - and says that she is already used to crutches, which she uses to move “very comfortably”.

The only known case of a doctor performing official amputation of healthy limbs in patients with BIID was recorded in 2000 in the UK. A surgeon from the Scottish Royal Falkirk Infirmary, Dr. Robert Smith, published a monograph "Questions, answers and recommendations about voluntary amputation", in which he said that he had performed two amputations of healthy limbs on his patients. Smith stated that he had to go to extreme measures because of the risk that patients could harm themselves - and noted that he had previously checked the mental health of his patients and made sure they were not sexually motivated. Patients who wanted to be amputated solely because of their sexual fantasies, he refused. According to Smith, after the operation, his clients felt much better - however, when the public learned about the non-standard procedure, he was forced to stop working, despite the steady demand for such surgical interventions.

Psychoanalyst Nadezhda Kuzmina notes that the current consensus about voluntary amputations may change - after all, not so long ago, plastic surgery was also "skeptical." “A person of the 21st century has an extremely complex relationship with his body, and amputation fantasies can be one of the forms of rejection of his corporality,” Kuzmina argues.

Out of the shadows

A few years ago, Denis, as part of a scientific internship at a European research center, studied the medical histories of 150 transgender people. “No matter how strange it may sound now, transgender people made me feel disgusted and nauseous. And I was terribly embarrassed, ”recalls the man. - On the other hand, I left the internship with a feeling of admiration and deep respect for these people: these are truly strong personalities whose lives - real tragedy. But the Vannabi experience the same thing. I believe we deserve the same understanding as transgender people."

Psychotherapist Perezhogin considers such a comparison to be incorrect, pointing out that not all transsexuals go for sex. surgical intervention limited to changing the passport. And even if surgical sex correction is performed, such an operation does not cause any damage to a person. “In Russia, in the case of transgender people, a medical examination is necessary - in order to make sure that if they change their gender, they will be able to adapt in society in a new capacity,” explains Perezhogin. - And what will be the adaptive effect of amputation for wannabi? After all, in fact, their life will not change in any way - except for the fact that they will have to walk in a prosthesis.

Michael Furst, on the other hand, agrees with Denis's analogy. “In both cases, a person feels very uncomfortable in his body: some are embarrassed by the genitals and secondary sexual characteristics, others by four healthy limbs. Both transsexuality and BIID first appear during childhood or adolescence, then the person begins to portray the desired ideal, dressing in the opposite sex or tying up limbs, the scientist explains. “To achieve that very ideal, both there and there, surgical intervention is required, which, at the same time, is not an end in itself, but a medicine against an irresistible desire to change sex or lose a limb.”

For Denis, the first step towards accepting his own identity was that he began to tell others about his desires. Denis's good friend was the first to know that he was a wannabi and immediately shared the information with her husband. “Of course, I was in shock,” the man recalls, “but it helped me realize that it is impossible to live forever under this fear.” According to him, now he does not hide his desires from his boyfriends.

Ksenia Shishkova for Meduza

Unlike Denis, Igor did not talk about his desire for amputation with anyone close to him - he only discussed it on the Internet with people who were unfamiliar, but close in addiction. “I'm afraid the doctor will think I'm crazy,” the man explains. - I even turned to God, prayed, took an oath. After that, I could not go to sites and forums for only three weeks, and then everything returned with even greater force. According to him, when he began to tell the priest about his problem, hinting that he was experiencing an unusual sexual attraction, he asked if Igor had Udmurts in the family (the man’s father was an Udmurt) - “and said that the Udmurts have very strong pagan roots and That's why they're being punished."

Psychoanalyst Kuzmina admits that while preparing for an interview with Meduza, she called a dozen of her colleagues asking if any of them had experienced similar cases in their practice. “Even among colleagues, the first reaction was denial, reluctance to talk about it,” she admits, adding that until there is a medical consensus about voluntary amputees, experts are unlikely to be able to help them. “Pain is very difficult to endure alone. Communication on the Internet is at least some way to cope with it, ”admits Kuzmina, who believes that sooner or later“ Vannabi will have to come out of the shadows.

According to Professor Furst, his American patients also keep their peculiarity a secret. Few decide to open up to relatives and friends, even fewer of those who find support and understanding from them. “One of my patients in New York has been dreaming of becoming paralyzed for years. And at some point he decided to move only in a wheelchair. He is a sales assistant in a store, says Furst. - And then one day he just came to work in a wheelchair and announced to everyone that he had a BIID. But his case is an exception. Usually people are very afraid to face the negative reaction of others.”

At the end of the conversation with Meduza, Igor returns to his desire to get rid of his "shameful" fantasies. “I really want to repent,” he says. - Just not in the order of the queue, as it usually happens in the church, but to talk heart to heart with someone. It seems that if I tell everything and the person listens to me and understands, then I will immediately feel better.”

Sasha is five years old, and she does not have a left forearm: after the elbow joint, the arm ends with a neat stump. Together with her dad and grandfather, she is waiting to try on her first artificial arm. Every half an hour, a specialist comes into the playroom - the head of the traction prosthetics department. In his hands he has a bath and a small soft tube made of hypoallergenic material. The tube is called a stump, or a sleeve, a stump is inserted into it, and due to this, the prosthesis rests on the limb. Each sleeve is individual, it must be perfectly adjusted to the shape and size so that it sits on the arm as comfortably as possible and does not rub anywhere, while the prosthesis is held firmly. That's why Sasha has been waiting in the children's room for four hours now: fitting the cartridge case is painstaking and requires a lot of patience. The specialist wets the cartridge case in water and gently puts his hand on Sasha: “Convenient?”

Sasha trying on a prosthesis

The sleeve rubs the skin, the prosthetist remembers what needs to be corrected, and again goes to the laboratory to finalize the device. The girl thinks about something, easily sits on cross twine on a bench and begins to draw. “Warm up for now,” her father says. Sasha is engaged in taekwondo: one day the coach noticed her and invited her to the section.

Experts believe that people, especially those with a hand injury, get used to using one hand in adulthood and it is much more difficult for them to learn how to use an artificial hand.

Usually than younger child, the faster he masters the prosthesis. For him, rehabilitation becomes a game, an interesting task to master a new gadget.

The pinnacle of skill for people with artificial hands is to master fine motor skills(insert a thread into a needle or varnish your fingernails).

When Sasha is finally brought her new prosthesis (which will also be improved if inconvenience is found in the first weeks), she quickly begins to take square cubes and thin wooden plates from the table, clamp them with artificial fingers and hold them on weight.

Uliana is 11 years old, she and her parents came from Belarus to get her first forearm prosthesis. The new hand gives in to it much harder. The prosthesis is not bionic, but traction: you need to bend elbow joint, and due to the tension of the cables, the fingers will grab the desired object. Ulyana tries to take hold of the doorknob, but out of habit, her shoulder rises, and her fingers fail to hold the object.

Ulyana is learning to use her new hand

Although the prosthesis is light, for the muscles of the stump and shoulder, such an exercise is a big load, and the arm gets tired quickly. At home, the girl needs to learn how to properly strain her muscles so that she can use the prosthesis like a normal hand and she does not have distortions in her posture.

Ulyana frustratedly looks at her new hand and compares it with the real, right one. “I think that when you are twenty-five years old, the robotic arm will already be cooler than the real one. And now you need to develop the muscles of the stump in order to be ready to put on the most advanced prosthesis in the future, ”the prosthetist reassures her. “Good,” the girl replies, but it is clear that she is not enthusiastic about such exercises, which she will have to do regularly.

Rehabilitologist Konstantin Bitelev has been putting people on artificial legs for the past four years. According to his experience, the most responsible students are women, they are able to clearly and conscientiously follow all the instructions of the instructor:

“In this case, the main thing is self-control. Be sure to perform normal household activities at home using a prosthesis, and not just train in the gym for an hour a day. When a patient comes to me and I see that he does not work with the prosthesis at home - and this is immediately evident - I stop working with him. You can start to somehow move on an artificial leg in a week, but learning to walk is a process for six months or more.”

Creation of a children's traction prosthesis

Konstantin tells and at the same time follows his student Dmitry, who is mastering his first prosthetic right hip. So far, the 25-year-old guy is uncertain about moving on a prosthesis, leaning on crutches, but the result is still amazing, given that this is his third lesson, and before that he spent a year in wheelchair. “Dim, are you in a hurry somewhere? the rehabilitator asks. - Straighten your back and walk again correctly. Better slowly but clearly. The last words can be a motto for all people who are learning to use artificial legs and arms.

"Cyborg" from

A modern bionic prosthesis brings its user so close to the image of a human cyborg or a terminator that it seems that in another fifteen years, artificial body parts will become more perfect than natural ones, and people will voluntarily implant fake hands and spines into themselves. The bionic prosthesis works as a reading device: sensors mounted on inside of the prosthesis, they pick up the electronic impulses that the muscles send, and the fingers bend in the right way, that is, they make a certain grip.

Substitute a shoulder for a person with a prosthesis

According to Deblikov, the absence of a society of people using prostheses greatly slows down prosthetics in our country: “People who lose limbs — dozens of people every day across the country — are in a complete information vacuum. They need information: they do not know where to turn, which prostheses to choose and how to get them, they do not know what certificates need to be issued. The Internet also does not give unambiguous answers to these questions, there is a lot of different information, but the overall picture does not add up from it.

Tatyana Pustovalova found herself in such a situation. In 2014, she and her husband were riding a motorcycle and got into an accident due to the fault of a drunk driver. For a week, doctors tried to save the leg, but in the end they had to amputate it below the knee.

In the hospital, Tatyana was hardly told about rehabilitation and prosthetics, although the patient's treatment is just beginning with the amputation.

During the month that the girl was in the hospital, she developed a knee contracture: she could not fully straighten her leg. During rehabilitation, I had to first solve this problem and only then get used to the prosthesis. Tatyana did not know that immediately after the amputation, she needed to do exercise therapy and load the muscles of the stump, because at rest they constantly tend to shrink.

Tatyana, like Konstantin Deblikov, believes that a society of people with prosthetic limbs could make life easier for everyone who has undergone amputation: “While I was in the hospital, I started looking for people with amputations on the Internet, and I already had a certain the image of a disabled person: this is an unhappy, miserable person who asks for help. But I saw beautiful young girls and guys who led a full life, and this motivated me a lot. And also very great importance had life hacks that the guys shared with me: they told me that you need to make a handle in the bathroom for convenience, advised what creams to use, what kind of physical education to do.”

Before the accident, Tatyana went to the gym, and after that she decided that the amputation of her leg was not a reason to give up classes. The girl turned to the coach, but he rather rudely explained that he would not deal with disabled people and people like her. “It was a big blow for me, because it is difficult for a person to feel complete, despite the absence of a limb. It’s also hard to overcome the fear that you have an artificial leg and that you can fully step on it. ” A gymnastics coach came to the aid of the girl, who agreed to work with her for free. At first, Tatyana worked with a group of pensioners, and then individually with a trainer she learned to crawl again on all fours, squat, squat - to do everything that she knew how to do before the accident.

Dreams of space

At the beginning of this summer, Tatyana's dream came true - she was given "cosmetics" (lining on the prosthesis, which closes and protects its mechanism. - Gazeta.Ru) with space airbrushing. “There were times when I was offered to close the prosthesis with a long skirt, because “you are so beautiful, but the prosthesis spoils you terribly.” In fact, I always treated this very evenly, I didn’t worry much. But if the boys can walk with the mechanisms outside, then it is important for me to maintain the volume of the prosthesis so that I can wear skirts and easily put on tights on both legs. So I ordered "makeup" and

I really like how my prosthesis looks like a tattooed leg. Now I can walk with my skirt held up proudly.”

Tatyana laughs. By the way, Tanya returned to the motorcycle, as well as to the gym. At first, sitting on a motorcycle was uncomfortable, but the seat was altered specifically for her fit, and now she is an avid motorcycle passenger.

This summer, Alexander Pankratov walked with a girl around the city, wearing a T-shirt with short sleeves. It doesn't seem unusual, but not for a guy who wears a black prosthetic left hand. Passers-by stopped and asked him what was wrong with his hand, but Alexander was not embarrassed by such interest: “Let people come up, I will be happy to tell them about my prosthesis. It’s better to let them be interested than you yourself will go and try to draw attention to your problem. ”

Evgeny Smirnov

29 years old, dancer, master of sports in kayaking

I was born in Sochi. In the ninth grade, my friends and I saw for the first time how grown-up guys on the street were dancing break-dance. It seemed to me then that it was a bad, broken dance: it has all kinds of sports, all kinds of dance. At breaks, we went down to the school hall: we tried, squirmed, fell. After the lessons, they ran to the market for hardboard (pressed cardboard, an ideal floor for breakdancing. - Note. ed.), trained at construction sites, in dust and mud, and in good weather went to the basketball courts. Six months later, we assembled the Freestyle Mastazz team, put on a show and went to the first competition in Tuapse. We were lucky - we took second place. For the next 12 years, they traveled to dance festivals and competitions, winning prizes in Russia and abroad.

My parents died when I was eighteen. In order to break dance and pay for my studies at the institute, I went to work at a construction site: I always liked the roofing craft. He worked for a year as an auxiliary worker, and then he assembled a team - we took private orders, laid roofs.

So I lived until I had an accident: I was riding a moped and collided with a car at speed on the highway in Lazarevsky (a resort area in Sochi. - Note. ed.). The driver immediately drove away from the scene of the accident, and I remained lying on the road - with a craniocerebral injury and a shattered right leg.

© Evgeny Smirnov

In the hospital

I thought: doctors will collect. And they were not collected.

I spent several days in the Lazarevskaya hospital. Friends and relatives were not allowed to see me - the doctors convinced them that I was fine. And when they finally let me in, and my friends saw the X-rays, a boom began: it turned out that if I were delayed for another day, I would not be alive. The guys transported me to Khosta Hospital No. 3. There, the doctors said that an urgent operation was needed. No one understood how the medical staff of Lazarevskaya brought it to this: the leg could be saved, at least up to the knee. And now gas gangrene has begun, which in three days has captured almost the entire leg. The alignment was 50 to 50 - or survive, or not.

Another month I lay in Khostinskaya - there were operations, one after another. And now everything seemed to be over - they were ready to discharge me. I thought: well, I will move away from the shock, and it will be possible to think about prosthetics. But after the examination, the doctor said that the amputation was performed incorrectly, an exostos is growing on the leg (a formation on the surface of the bone. - Note. ed.). If I don't reamputate, I won't be able to use the prosthesis at all. I was sent to Moscow, and then to Yekaterinburg and Kostroma - first for rehabilitation, and then for a second operation and recovery.

Houses

After the accident, Freestyle Mastazz broke up: who has children, who has a wife, who has Moscow. When I returned home (now I live in Krasnodar), I realized that I would not sit still, but would try to go in for sports. My father worked all his life at a shipyard in Lazarevsky, building ships and boats. When I was little, they built a ship on the oars "Ivliya". They traveled around many countries on it: I remember I was seven years old when my father returned from a voyage and brought a million Turkish chocolates. Later, when I grew up, we often went with him on a boat with oars - "Tuzik". I rowed, and he just sat on the stern.

I remembered my childhood, thought about it and decided to take up rowing. At the first lesson, the coach noted me: “Look, everyone turns over the first time, but you hold on. We will train." After two years of training, I took third place in the Russian Championship in kayaking and defended the master of sports.

But rowing was not enough for me, I realized that I want to dance again. It seemed to me: if I show people that you can move even after an accident, it will help people like me.

It's a difficult time. I quit my job (I spent several months selling tours to a travel agency) to get serious about rowing and dancing. Dancing didn't work at first. I learned to walk on a prosthesis, but I trained without it, it was easier that way. The body did not obey, I fell, I was afraid to land on the stump - it was painful, and it is not clear how this could affect the leg. There was no money, I took out a loan. I didn’t understand what to do: spit on everything and go to your dream, getting into debt, or work from morning to evening. With my disability pension of six thousand rubles, I would not go far. I was offered to get a job and receive 15 or 20 thousand rubles, but at the same time I had to sit in the office - from morning to evening. This meant that I would have to give up dancing and rowing. I chose a dream. Now I work as a rowing instructor at the same school where I train.

On the stage

One day, a friend from Comedy Battle called me and offered to participate in the Dancing show on TNT. I agreed and immediately invited my friend Dasha Smirnova to put the number. In dancing with a partner, you need to feel each other, and at that time I still did not feel myself. I was afraid to hurt her or, God forbid, drop her. We danced for two months. Our number was liked by the audience and the jury: Buzova (host of the show "Dancing". - Note. ed.) cried on the set, everyone called us heroes. We went to the next round. I refused to go further: I understood that the jury would not be able to evaluate me on a par with other dancers. "Dancing" is a competition in which everyone must go through all the stages, whether he copes with them or not.

After the competition, Dasha and I thought: why not open an inclusive dance school for children with disabilities? Even if the child does not want to dance, we can teach him to move so that he can live comfortably. It would be possible to make several dance styles (for example, include ballrooms in the program). To understand how to arrange this, I conducted several children's workshops. I was amazed by what I saw: ordinary children, who grasped dance techniques on the fly, helped the disabled, who were a little slower. It was as if an inner coach woke up in them: they educated each other, taught, helped, communicated.

We plan to open the first school in Krasnodar, and then we will expand a network of branches throughout Russia so that every child with disabilities can dance. The school will be free for the disabled. Now we are looking for sponsors and investors and we really hope for their help. We were offered to allocate a room at the RSSU in Moscow so that we could study there with children. We temporarily refused, because we need a permanent separate area that can be equipped for a dance class.

In recent months, I have been traveling a lot: I hold master classes in different cities, participate in forums of civil activists and talk about our dream. Recently, he again participated in the show "Dancing" - he closed the final program. To do this, he flew to Moscow, and from there to Perm - he participated in the forum "I am a citizen", was an expert at the "Unbroken ambitions" site. After - to Krasnodar, and from there - to Lipetsk, to participate in a charity event on the Day of the Disabled.

AT next year I want to apply for a government grant to start a non-profit business. Friends advise starting a crowdfunding company to raise money for the school, but I'm not ready to do it yet. Now it is important for me to formalize the NPO so that everything is transparent and official. I don’t want people to say later: where do you spend money, you probably buy something for yourself. Even if there is some kind of general fee, let it be honest so that everyone can see what the money went for and what equipment we bought. Many people support us. People are waiting.

At 17, I was no different from my peers, except perhaps overweight. I first wanted to lose weight when I was in school and suffered from unrequited love. I have always been fat, because I completely lacked a food culture: I ate a lot and everything. High school graduation was coming up, I wanted to be in good shape to surprise the guys and impress the girls. Began hard work on myself. I dropped 50 kilograms and began to weigh 90. But this was only the beginning of a big change. I thought so.

It was in 2013, the accident happened a few months later, in April. As I remember now: I - happy that I finally lost weight - walk home, cross the road with one-way traffic. Two cars stopped to let me through, and the third, a truck, had brake failure. The driver decided to avoid a collision with cars in front and drove one wheel onto the sidewalk, where I was finishing crossing the road. The truck dragged me 15 meters on a hook that caught my leg. The car crashed into a pole and squeezed my leg, at that moment I realized that I was left without it. I was lucky that an ambulance passed by. They immediately took me away, stopped the bleeding, put a splint on me. Then resuscitation. I was in a coma for 10 days.

The doctors took my leg piece by piece. And they succeeded. Only she never took root: gangrene formed. She had to be amputated up to the buttock.

A period of rehabilitation began, which became a real hell for me: I had to do dressings on live meat, because I had nothing to sew. Two months later, everything tightened up, but I still remember with horror what I had to endure. All this time my family supported me, for which I am very grateful to them. If it wasn't for my family, I wouldn't be where I am today. In moments of despair, they told me: “Serge, don’t worry, everything will be fine. Look, people without arms, without legs, sometimes without a head live! And nothing!" It was still difficult to get rid of the complexes: a young guy, 17 years old, without a leg ... I understand that I looked worse than other young people. Of course, I wanted to fulfill myself, but it is much more difficult to do it without a leg than with it.

When I was discharged from the hospital, I faced new difficulties. For the first six months, I could neither eat nor drink on my own. My parents were always there and helped me in everything. Then slowly began to get used to life "after". He learned to sit, he tried to sit in a wheelchair. The pain was hellish: he could not hold back the tears and screams. Everything was like in some dramatic movie. The only difference is that this is life.

Rehabilitation is a long and laborious process. I am still recovering. The second and only leg is paralyzed below the knee. A year later, I had an operation in St. Petersburg, and seven months later I was allowed to step on my foot. But I still don’t walk, because I don’t feel my feet: I’m uncomfortable, uncomfortable, I fall all the time. It is very difficult to put a prosthesis, because there is no stump. I was in the hospital for 10 months, nine of them were in traction, but I could not stretch my leg.

I don't know why people in a wheelchair are said to be doomed to loneliness. There is practically no such thing in the modern world.

Before meeting with my girlfriend Ksenia, I also had a relationship, and at that time I was already without a leg.

Ksyusha is with me not because, for example, I am popular on Instagram, and even more so not out of pity, but simply because we suit each other.

Not so long ago, she and I moved to live in St. Petersburg. Before that, they lived in my hometown, in Arkhangelsk. A year ago I was offered a good job in St. Petersburg. First of all, I discussed this with Ksyusha: is it worth it? She supported me, of course. For a year we met at a distance: at that time she was still in her senior year in our city. It was hard, but I think the distance only strengthened our feelings. This summer, Ksyusha entered St. Petersburg University, we rented an apartment here and now we live together.

The most important thing for me is to be helpful. I look at my popularity on Instagram not from the monetary side. The more people subscribe to my blog, the better the world will be (at least I want to believe it). I believe that my page is correct because I advocate that being weak (sometimes, of course) is not a bad thing. This happens to each of us. The main thing is not to be afraid of it, not to hide it, burrowing into your own complexes. You need to learn to say to yourself: “Yes, I am like that, but I will become better.” I hope that in the future I will do something offline. I want to help people, give lectures to those who are desperate and think that it is simply impossible to live on. Now I am 22, and I can say with full confidence that life is just beginning.

Ivan Samodelkin, 22 years old. Lost a leg in May of this year

As a child, I was such a restless child that my parents simply did not know where to direct my energy. At the age of four I was sent to figure skating, because in other sports they take no earlier than 6 years. Then I fell in love with ice for the first time and began to dream of an ice career. I worked in sports school"Junior", has achieved considerable success: participated in the championships of the northern capital, the stages of the Cup of Russia, but never reached the level of the national team.

2015 was a turning point in my career. I understood that great heights in professional sports can no longer be achieved. And for us, figure skaters, if you stay on the ice and don’t practice professionally (you don’t participate in competitions), then you have to choose: either as a coach or as a ballet on ice. I chose the second. "Swan Lake", "The Nutcracker", "Romeo and Juliet" - this is not the whole part of the repertoire of our St. Petersburg ballet. We traveled all over Russia and Europe. This time was the best in my life: on tour, I met the figure skater Ksyusha Posen.

April 30 this year we played a wedding. In May, after the wedding festivities, the whole family waved to the dacha. I plowed the land with a cultivator, my uncle wielded a hoe, in a word, the work was in full swing.

One bed remained unplowed, and in order to return back, I turned on the cultivator reverse. At that moment, the metal clamp jammed. I tried to squeeze it out, but I couldn't.

The blade cut my leg.

Then everything is like in a dream. I remember the cries of my uncle, the confused faces of my parents, the ambulance, the doctors, the hospitalization. The bleeding was stopped - the injury was severe. Hope for a speedy recovery remained until the doctors reported that earth had got into the wound, which provoked infection. The leg had to be amputated.

I never cease to be amazed at how many caring and kind people are around. What happened to me, everyone will know through social media. Every day I receive a dose of support and warm words from complete strangers, but incredibly sympathetic and sympathetic people.

There is no need to talk about plans for the future yet: it is not known how the recovery will proceed. I understand that even the most modern prostheses will not be able to allow me to achieve high sports results. Load on the body figure skating be healthy, not every healthy person will master. But I can't imagine my life without sports. Now I want to ice more than ever. I'm definitely not going to give up and hang my skates on a nail. Today, people with disabilities have so many opportunities, the main thing is desire. I want to try my hand at Paralympic sports, or maybe become a figure skating coach.