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To our LifeNets Supporters and Friends!
Forty years ago, the creation of an accidental, but deadly “positive void coefficient” sent the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl ranging out of control. Within seconds a massive steam explosion from the overheated core blew tons of radioactive fuel, concrete and debris through the roof of the stricken reactor.
The unprecedented event changed thousands of lives, including – although my husband Victor and I didn’t know it at the time – our own. We, like millions of others, watched the terrible news as a radiation cloud dispersed over Europe. Many people put their lives on the line to contain the radioactive disaster.
Ten years later, in a seemingly unrelated setting, Victor and I were in England, sitting with a well-known British surgeon named Dr. Maurice Frohn. The meeting would change our lives.
He casually mentioned that he was considering a trip to Ukraine. News of young children being afflicted with possible radiation-induced thyroid cancer had come to his attention.
Intrigued, Victor – who is Ukrainian by birth and speaks the language well – was inspired to offer his services as a translator. The chance meeting produced a partnership, and the two laid plans to travel there.
What they discovered led directly to the subsequent founding of LifeNets International. In the decade since the horrific explosion, the headlines had faded. Back then, the Ukrainian people—including many children—were all but forgotten.
Traveling at personal expense on the first of three trips to Ukraine, Victor’s heart sank as he and Dr. Frohn visited hospital wards in Chernihiv. Many children were in dire need of help.
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