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After being attacked abroad for her independence, Ukrainian enjoys kindness of strangers in Dallas
10/09/2002
By LAURA GRIFFIN / The Dallas Morning News
Tatyana Goryachova's role as a witness to history for the only independent newspaper in her small town in Ukraine was threatened last year when, during a local election, a stranger threw acid in her eyes.
But her desire to remain an editor despite the attack that left her temporarily
blind has captured the hearts of many, including an anonymous Dallas donor
who offered to pay for any surgeries she would need to regain her eyesight.
"I know that something I thought could never happen has happened,"
Ms. Goryachova, 35, said through an interpreter this week.
"I think I'm a strong character. I didn't cry when my eyes were burned. I didn't cry with all the pain. I didn't cry in the clinic when I thought they would return to hurt me. But when I learned a person on a different continent who doesn't know me was willing to help me, I cried."
On Tuesday, Ms. Goryachova met with ophthalmologists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, who gave her good news: Her eyesight is better than she or her doctors knew. Although surgery in the United States was recommended in Ukraine, she will not need any, doctors in Dallas said.
"Acid injuries look terrible in the beginning and significantly affect the vision at first, but do well with time," said Dr. James McCulley, junior chair in ophthalmology at UT Southwestern who specializes in chemical burns. "She's had expert treatment and has responded well to it. My best guess is that this well settle out nicely."
Ms. Goryachova thought she would need two surgeries, including a cornea transplant.
"It is a huge surprise and relief," she said. "It was worth coming all the way to the U.S. to learn that."
It's been a long road to Dallas to get that news.
The incident happened last January during the election for the mayor of Berdyansk, a resort city on the sea of Azov in southeast Ukraine. Ms. Goryachova's newspaper, the Berdyansk Delovoy, where her husband is publisher, announced it would give all the candidates equal space in its pages.
The move was controversial, she said, but they felt it was their job as the only independent newspaper to do it.
The paper received threatening phone calls and, she said, shortly thereafter her husband and one of the candidates were in an automobile accident that raised suspicions. Her husband, Sergei Balousov, suffered head injuries, and the candidate's arm was broken.
Two weeks later as Ms. Goryachova walked home from work, a man she'd never seen threw acid in her eyes.
Immediately, she said, she was in severe pain and could not see. She rubbed snow in her face and somehow made the short distance home. Her family called an ambulance, but one never came, she said.
The police investigated and closed the case when a drug addict confessed. Later, the addict said he was forced to confess. Journalists have called for further investigation.
Doctors treated her at home for 10 days before sending her to the best hospital in Ukraine. Doctors there had limited technology at their disposal and suggested she travel to Western Europe or the United States to seek help.
But then she met Hal Foster, a journalist and educator visiting through the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX), based in Washington, D.C.
Mr. Foster, who spent 32 years as a journalist and two as a professor, worked with IREX in Ukraine this summer as a media consultant for independent newspapers. When he began working with the Delovoy, he said, he was immediately taken with Ms. Goryachova's courage and desire to keep independent journalism alive, despite the attack.
"It's amazing what they're doing at this little independent newspaper," he said, "especially with it being such a dangerous country for a reporter to work in."
IREX paid Ms. Goryachova's airfare to Dallas and has worked to support her newspaper with media resources.
"It's obviously tragic what happened to her, and it happens all too often in that region," said Mark Whitehouse of IREX. "What's all the more tragic is the message it sends about the power of the press. It tells other journalists that they have to censor themselves or fear for their safety."
Since the 1998 elections there, 11 journalists have been killed and 48 others have been seriously injured in attacks in Ukraine, according to Reporters Without Borders, an international organization based in France that called for a national government investigation into Ms. Goryachova's attack.
Journalists and independent newspapers in Ukraine are also thwarted financially - burdened with additional taxes and subject to all kinds of audits and fees.
Ms. Goryachova is determined to continue her work, but not without reservations.
"I live and work in a small town, and the thought that the people who tried to hurt or kill me live in the same town scares me, and I can't sleep," she said. "I don't know the real ending of this story, but I'm not quitting my favorite newspaper."