Shavarsh Karapetyan's Trolleybus Lake Rescue
In 1976, Soviet Armenian swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan, an 11-time world record holder, 17-time world champion, 13-time European champion, and 7-time USSR champion, had just finished a 20-kilometer training run along Yerevan Lake when he heard a trolleybus crash off the dam and plunge into the reservoir. The bus lay about 25 meters offshore at a depth of 10 meters, so he dove 33 feet down into sewage-contaminated water with almost zero visibility, kicked out the rear window with his legs, and began pulling passengers out one at a time while his brother Kamo and other rescuers helped them to shore.
Over a series of rapid dives of roughly half a minute each, he dragged 37 people from the submerged trolleybus, and 20 of the 92 passengers ultimately survived. The combined effect of the cold water and multiple glass cuts left him unconscious in hospital for 46 days with pneumonia, sepsis, and lung damage that effectively ended his elite sports career.