Many who know the name of the hero Leonid Toptunov, who put his life in defense of other people. A very young guy, without hesitation, went to the destroyed rector of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant immediately after the call. Despite the lethal doses of radiation, Leonid opened the water valve for cooling the reactor. This partially reduced the temperature and marked the beginning of extinguishing a terrible fire at the station in 1986.
Who was this young hero? There lived Leonid Toptunov in the city of Pripyat. He was a good specialist, despite his age. In 1983, the Engineer Toptunov was accepted to a responsible position at one of the largest NPPs in the USSR – the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant named after V. Lenin.
Life was beautiful. Leonid was only 25 years old, but he already had his own home, a prestigious job. On weekends I went fishing, in the evening I met with friends.
At one such meeting, Leonid met a beautiful girl from a nearby village. The young guy fell in love so much that after this meeting, he firmly decided to marry.
2 weeks after that, Toptunov was told about the assigned test at block 4. But his thoughts were already at the May holidays and the upcoming date with his girlfriend ..
On the night of April 26, Leonid arrived at the shift, as usual.
After a couple of hours on block 4, the test began. Toptunov and Akimov were under the leadership of Anatoly Dyatlov, deputy chief engineer of the Chernobyl NPP. Everyone was confident in the success of the test. After all, after that, the staff expected an increase.
But because of the poisoned reactor and design flaws an explosion occurred. The engineers were in a state of shock, and did not quite understand what had happened.
Leonid Toptunov and Alexander Akimov ran along the destroyed station corridors to manually open the pumps that supply water for cooling the reactor. Indeed, because of the explosion, the automatics did not work. Understanding the danger, the young guys still took this step, taking the first blow. Radiation levels exceeded the norm thousands or even millions of times. The situation was critical. But the guys managed to open the valve, which gave a start to the cooling in the burning unit.
Unfortunately, due to the explosion, the communications were too damaged, which put to give good results. Radioactive water burned the faces and bodies of Toptunov and Akimov. The body absorbed hundreds of x-rays.
As a result, the guys received about 1,000 X-rays and died in a radiological clinic in Moscow.
They were buried at the Mitinsky cemetery in Moscow with other victims of the Chernobyl accident.
Leonid Toptunov was awarded the Order of Courage 3 degrees posthumously.
