Viktor Kibenok

Kibenok was born into a family of firefighters, his father and his grandfather were both firemen. He would sometimes go with his father to emergencies and watch. This is presumably when Kibenok found his love for firefighting. He graduated from Cherkasy Fire And Technical School in August 1984 and was sent to work in Pripyat. He was a Lieutenant and the Chief Guard at Pripyat Fire Station (SPVCH-6).

Kibenok is described as being strong-willed, kind by-nature, a caring man. He also had a love for Motorsports and owned a motorcycle. In his free time he would modify and work on his motorcycle and loved driving it.

Kibenok and his men were resting at the station when the reactor exploded. An alarm came through a few minutes later. It woke everybody in the station up. Many even saw the explosion from their dormitory windows above the fire station. Kibenok sent three trucks to the power plant. He arrived at around 1:45 AM and met up with Pravik, Pravik briefed him on what had happened and instructed him to take his men to the roof of Reactor 3. Kibenok and his men climbed up there and started extinguishing fires around the ventilation chimney.

After a few hours his men started to collapse. When a doctor arrived he said to him: Something's wrong... something's got my boys feeling all sick" He then collapsed and was taken by ambulance to Pripyat Hospital. He was then taken to Moscow Hospital No.6.

Kibenok also received burns on the inside of his mouth and on his lips due to him inhaling burning bitumen and also received bitumen burns on his legs because of the melting bitumen that covered the roof.

He died on the 11th May 1986 from radiation sickness a few hours after his friend and fellow commander Vladimir Pravik.

• Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster