Dagestan: senior schoolchildren save drowning child

In the village of Tanusi, Khunzakh District of Dagestan, Shamil and Magomedsaigid Khatipov, pupils of the eighth and ninth grades, respectively, saved a six-year-old boy from drowning in an icy lake, the Republic's Department of the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of the Russian Federation has reported.

Zaur Magomedov, a pupil of the first class of the Tanusi secondary school, fell through the ice of the lake, where children gather to skate and play hockey, the above MfE Department reported on December 23.

Shamil Khatipov, an eighth form pupil, rushed to rescue the drowning boy. He ran to the edge of the ice and stretched out his hand to the boy; however, the child dragged the teen into the water. The boys who stayed ashore called ninth-graders for help. One of them – Magomedsaigid Khatipov – started dragging Shamil by his leg, who, in his turn, kept hold of the six-year-old Zaur, the site of the local MfE describes the accident.

As a result, all the boys managed to get out of the lake.

"The teachers, pupils of the Tanusi school, villagers and Zalmu, Zaur Magomedov's mother, are proud of the deed of the young villagers," said an MfE official, as quoted by the RIA "Dagestan".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported about similar accidents; some of them ended tragically. Thus, on June 24, 2013, the 24-year-old Marat Rakhmetov perished in Zvenigorod, Moscow Region, while rescuing two drowning schoolgirls – Yulia Akinieva and Repsime Kerogyan, both 14 years old. On July 13, 2010, the 17-year-old Malik Akhmadov saved a drowning young woman, but he himself got into a whirlpool, spent more than seven minutes under water and became disabled due to oxygen starvation.