I’ll never be a piano player, but...’ Forecasts

Press, 17 May 1986, Page 1

I’ll never be a piano player, but...’

Forecasts

By DAVID WILSON “I’ll never be a piano player but I hope my hand will be all right,” says a Soviet seaman, Vladimir Belov, who is fast becoming a celebrity at Burwood Hospital. Armed with a Russian/ English dictionary and with daily help from an interpreter, the shy patient is learning to cope with the sudden fame that has followed his misfortune. Mr Belov, aged 22, had his right hand severed in a workshop accident aboard the Soviet trawler Boksit near Stewart Island on Thursday last week. He was lifted from the ship by the R.N.Z.A.F. and flown to Christchurch. His severed hand was packed in bags of water and ice. It was this quick action by the ship’s doctor that kept alive the possibility of a replant. The seaman’s hand was sewn back on during eight hours of micro-surgery

performed by Mr Stewart Sinclair. The operation began 21 hours after the accident and Mr Belov began to move the fingers of his hand about an hour after the surgery.. Yesterday he faced television cameras and reporters surrounded by .flowers, fruit and other gifts, and many messages from well-wishers all over New Zealand. To make him feel “at home” he has several Russian newspapers and a Walkman-type cassette player and tapes (another gift) of Russian folk songs. Mr Belov, a mechanic on the trawler, remembers little of the accident — nor does he want to, he said yesterday through an interpreter. "At first I thought I had lost my hand for ever, but the ship’s doctor did everything possible and very quickly, and was praised for this.” He said he was impressed by the skill of the

surgeon and was optimistic for the future. “Today I feel good. The fingers, and especially the thumb, are moving more each day with the help of physiotherapy." Mr Belov is married and has a seven-month-old daughter. He last saw his family five months ago, just before the Boksit sailed from Vladivostok. His wife had been told about his accident he said, but he had not been able to speak to her by telephone yet. He and his family live at Nakhodka, a port in the far east of the Soviet Union. Mr Belov was on his first overseas trip on the trawler and he does not know when he will be allowed to return to the Soviet Union and his family. That will depend on his medical progress. He has also had time to learn a few words of English: “Yes — hello, goodbye and thanks.”