In 1976, Armenian Olympic swimmer Shavarsh Karapetyan and his brother had just finished a 12-mile run when they saw a trolley bus crash into a dam tank. The trolley bus sank 33 feet deep, 80 feet out to sea. Shavarsh jumped in and swam right to the bus. Even though he couldn’t see, he managed to kick in the back window and hurt himself in the process.

After being stuck in the bus for hours, he saved twenty people one by one. He was hospitalized for 45 days after the event because of the cold water and his questions about breaking the glass window. During that time, he got pneumonia, sepsis, and lung damage that ended his athletic career.

His story wasn’t known for years until 1982, when a piece about the event named him. In 1985, he was walking by a building that was on fire and ran inside to save people who were trapped inside one by one until he passed out. He was taken to the hospital again because he had serious burns and lung harm.
At 66, he’s still going strong. Someone great I learned about today, I thought I’d share.