Recently
I received an e-mail that made me catch my breath. Sheila U., the daughter of the nurse that
helped save Sergei Kourdakov’s life, had just located her mother’s diary. And attached to the e-mail were photocopies. Yes.
That nurse. Her diary.
It isn’t possible, it just isn’t
possible, I kept
telling myself as my eyes flew across the scrawled handwritten pages. The date at the top of the diary entry was September
4, 1971. That meant the pages she sent me
were written forty-four years ago this very month. And the woman who wrote the entry was the
nurse who helped save Sergei Kourdakov’s life hours after he jumped into the
sea off the coast of Canada on September 3, 1971. Sergei had just defected from the USSR. Later it would be a startling revelation, and
a story that she shared with her daughter over the years. Below is an excerpt from the diary, some personal information has been removed.
From The Diary of Ruth Stafford:
Sept. 4, 1971
Sergie Khourdakov, the Russian sailor,
jumped from a Russian fishing boat in Tasu Sound [British Colombia, Canada] about
midnight and nearly 8 hours later crawled up on the beach behind Sander’s.... And there he was, blue and vacant-eyed with
bleeding hands, feet & legs on the cold cement with only a pair of wet,
cut-off pants…. It was obvious he was
suffering from exhaustion & exposure (it had been a cold, windy, rainy,
stormy night) and was near collapse.
It was several hours before he began to warm
up with blankets, hot water bottle & sips of tea, during which he’d awaken
confused & frightened. When he
became more rational he suddenly pulled out a plastic bag from his shorts. It contained photos, and other personal
papers which were all wet. We laid them
out to dry. This was his first indication
that he realized we were friends and he was soon trying to converse; learned
“yes,” “no,” “okay,” “Thank-you-very much.”
Bob said that for a time he was worried about him as he had an irregular
heartbeat. However, color & vital
signs improved rapidly and by 1 p.m. he was jolly & had eaten a light
meal. The RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted
Police] arrived & we received some information from him via…a Russian
electrician.
The mine [Tasu was a mining community]
bought him a set of clothes & he gave Bob his switch-blade as a token. He turned up his collar jauntily &
sauntered off happily with the RCMP.
We are convinced that his physical fitness
& determination & youth played a major part in his survival in such
cold waters for such a length of time.
He was tall with powerful chest, shoulders arms & legs – and rather
attractive, I must add.
After several days in jail in Prince Rupert,
Vancouver, & an unknown length of time in Quebec City he was granted
political asylum….
Even
though Sergei had told me about the day he defected from the Soviet Union, he
left out the dramatic, anguished details about his fight for survival in the
treacherous sea. I know he didn’t want
to alarm me, and he certainly didn’t want my sympathy. I was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions
as I read the pages from the nurse’s diary.
For me, seeing the actual written words brought Sergei back to life for
a few short minutes. I was reminded of
his strength and humor. It was hard to
read that Sergei barely survived, that his body was bruised and blue. In spite of everything, Sergei’s fun-loving
personality was quite evident when he turned up the collar on his shirt and excitedly
walked towards his new life and freedom.
In every way, Sergei was larger than life itself.
