President Yushchenko awards Order of Courage to 13-year-old

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko has awarded the Order of Courage, 3rd degree, to eighth-grader Vadym Nesteruk from the village of Holovenka in Zhytomyr oblast. The head of state signed a corresponding order on Feb. 7, the Ukrainian president’s press service reported.

On Dec. 26, 2006, Vadym rescued four young neighbors: a pair of five-year old twins and their brothers, a six-year-old and his two-year-old brother. When the mother was out of the house, the children set fire to an armchair while playing with matches. Vadym heard a neighbor’s voice calling for help and climbed into the house through a window. He handed the children one by one to their mother, then turned off the gas in the boiler, unscrewed the safety devices, and opened the windows. Together with two other boys Vadym extinguished the fire.

President Yushchenko told Vadym: “You deserve an order for your actions.” The president also thanked the boy’s mother Oksana Nesterchuk for her son’s upbringing. The Nesteruks are a family with many children. Vadym has two brothers and a sister. Yurii Pavlenko, the head of the Zhytomyr Oblast State Administration, was also present at the award ceremony.