Heroic savior

Shavarsh Karapetyan, a retired Soviet Armenian swimmer and World and European champion, saved the lives of 20 people in a 1976 trolleybus accident in Yerevan, Armenia. The trolleybus, crowded with 92 passengers, sank into a dam at a depth of 10 meters (33 feet). Karapetyan jumped into the dam, broke through a window and started to pull the passengers out. He managed to save 20 of them before he himself lost consciousness in the murky water.