Ten days after the Chernobyl disaster, engineers discovered a dangerous situation: the reactor’s cooling system had failed, creating a pool of water beneath the reactor. Without cooling, the reactor core could fall into the pool, causing massive steam explosions that would spread radiation across Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Only Alexei Ananenko, an engineer, knew the location of the critical release valve. He, along with engineer Valeri Bezpalov and shift supervisor Boris Baranov, volunteered for a life-threatening mission to drain the pool. They could have refused, but Ananenko felt he had no choice, as he was the only one who knew where the valves were.
Wading through waist-high radioactive water in near-total darkness, with only a flickering diving light, the men faced extreme danger. The light eventually failed, but they found a familiar pipe that led them to the valves. They opened the valves, draining the pool and averting disaster. Every moment in the radioactive environment damaged their bodies further.
Initial reports claimed all three died of radiation sickness soon after, but according to Andrew Leatherbarrow’s 2016 book Chernobyl 01:23:40, Ananenko and Bezpalov survived and continued working in the nuclear industry. Baranov died in 2005 of heart failure at age 65. The water they stood in likely absorbed much of the radiation, possibly saving their lives.
