Hero seconds

This story took place forty-five years ago in the German city of Magdeburg. Just a few minutes of Air Force Captain Igor Belikov was not just a famous person and a national hero in the German Democratic Republic. March 13, 1969, the Soviet Air Force Captain Igor Belikov, arrived in Magdeburg for a medical examination. Walking through the alley Wilhelm Pieck, the officer noticed a crowd of people at the house №24. They all looked up in dismay.





Looking up, he saw Belikov in the opening of the window on the sixth floor of the child. It was a 4-year-old Catherine Lehmann. The officer realized that a little bit more and a girl fall through.
He took off his overcoat for a few minutes at the very moment when a child fell from the window, I managed to stay one hand on the window sill, and then flew down into the flat outstretched overcoat captain. How then will count specialists, given the speed with which the fallen girl, Belikov took on the weight of about 250 kilograms. This is about the average weight of the motorcycle. The Germans named hero of the Soviet officer seconds. But then such a large cargo Belikov he felt he had the impression that there is, in the overcoat, there was nothing. He began with the fear of the fabric and easily deploy sighed when she sat down on the asphalt and raskhnykalas, began to call her mother. Not cry out in pain: it was not a single scratch.



Russian military succeeded in what often can not afford a professional rescuers. That timing quietly feat Belikov 10 seconds sprinting to the place of a potential tragedy - a few seconds of salvation - the memory of grateful Germans for the past 44 years.



He became an honorary burgher of Magdeburg. Mother rescued girls presented pilot to the camera. By the 15th anniversary of the miraculous rescue of Catherine was a monument to perpetuate the quiet heroism of the captain. I emphasize that it is immortalized. After all, despite the fact that since then, passed 44 years old, collapsed GDR, Wilhelm Pieck and the street was renamed avenue Ernst Reuter, there will never forget the events of the distant March.
The monument is kept clean. In the spring of him lay flowers.



With family rescued girls Alekseevech Igor Belikov, it maintains relations so far.
Arriving in Germany on the 30th anniversary of the event - which the Germans themselves clearly write: "Yes, a feat!" - A retired military man asked for financial aid for the hospital in his native Lugansk (Ukraine). Less than two days as ordinary Germans, without any instructions from above, chipped in for fellow Belikov food and clothes and sent them to Lugansk. Then, provided financial help and the hospital itself. It is in the blood: "Refuse the hero in his request - a shame."



By the way, Igor Belikov he never considered his action feat. Today, he says of him: "If I was an atheist before, the March 13, 1969 came to believe that there is God».



Source: www.nvspb.ru