Everyone went to dinner, but he went to hang himself

This happened on 6 December at 19:00 in the Daryevskaya Correctional Colony No. 10. A detachment of one of the colony's local sectors was gathering for dinner. As a rule, controllers always patrol the territory at such times. They check all the nooks and crannies of the residential sector (toilets, basements, boiler rooms)—whether anyone has been left behind, whether anyone is hiding, whether anyone is 'up to no good'. And so, on this day, two controllers were inspecting the premises; they were approaching the toilet where, suddenly, some noise and scuffling were heard. A convict from this same residential sector happened to be entering the same place, hurrying to dinner. And when he opened the door, everyone saw a person hanging against the window...
He was hanging by a drawstring pulled from track pants and tied to a water pipe running above the window at a height just above a human's stature. Both the staff and the convict rushed together to save him. While Ivan Krivenkov and Yuriy Lyapin lifted the sagging body, Ivan Lazko quickly cut the string, and they lowered the hanged man to the floor. The young guy (born in 1983), who had decided to commit suicide, was no longer breathing, and his pulse could not be felt. The thought flashed that time was needed while they called for doctors or carried him to the medical unit themselves, and that meant less chance of survival. And right there, in the toilet, they began to perform artificial respiration and external cardiac massage. For some time, he showed no signs of life, and then he shuddered, coughed, spat out a clot of saliva, and began to breathe. They laid him on a blanket and then, running, carried him to the hospital located on the territory of the colony. Despite the fact that the guy started breathing, the doctors fought for his life for a long time, and the question of life and death remained open for more than an hour. By the way, both the medics and the colony leadership note that if it had not been for the competently provided assistance to the victim by the staff and the convict, it would have been impossible to save him.
As the controllers recounted in an interview, it was the first time in their lives they had provided first aid not during drills, but in reality. Both shift commander Ivan Lazko and junior inspector Ivan Krivenkov are from the same area, friends since childhood, and by education, they are tractor operators and graduated together from the Arkhangelsk Tractor and Mechanical College. They ended up there thanks to 'matchmakers': back in those days, in the Soviet era, representatives of various colleges, technical schools, and institutes would come to the district centre and schools to campaign for their educational institution. That is how they were 'lured' from the Kherson region to Arkhangelsk, or rather by the fact that there, at the college, there was one male dormitory and three female ones. Then, after the college, came service in the army. And although they served in different units, that did not interrupt their friendship. Having served almost simultaneously and returned to their homeland, they decided to go work in the colony together. Over the years of their service in the colony, all sorts of things had happened, but for a suicide to occur on their shift—that was a first. And they did not panic because, during the training sessions held for staff, they constantly analyse all sorts of situations, including actions for providing first aid and saving a person.
When we asked the convict Yuriy Lyapin where he learned to provide medical assistance, he replied: 'Specifically—nowhere. Life taught me.' Yuriy believes that what also saved the guy was that he was wearing a thick sweater. The collar prevented the cord from crushing his larynx 'to death'.
The guy who decided to commit suicide was never registered with a psychologist either as suicidal or as prone to self-harm. A calm, balanced guy, he worked and tended to the flowers on the central alley. He had already served almost half his sentence (3 years). And since there were no reprimands against him, he could count on parole in the coming years. True, people saw that he had been walking around upset for the last couple of days, but to all questions from both staff and other convicts, he answered that everything was fine.
Currently, the guy's life is out of danger. But for psychological rehabilitation, he was sent to IK No. 20 in the Zaporizhzhia region, where a specialised psychiatric hospital is located. Before leaving, he admitted that it was a spontaneous decision, about which he now regrets. It was just very painful to receive a letter from home saying that his wife, with two children, was leaving him for another man and had already filed for divorce...