It was the end of 1989. I was 8 years old. As is often the case in our region, autumn was already quite snowy and frosty — a real winter. I was in the first shift at school, and after classes, my daily chores included cleaning the apartment and preparing dinner, which I had to finish by the time my parents came home from work. In short, that day all the chores were done, and I even managed to play outside. So, my older brother and I were watching TV.
It was already dark outside when Dad came home and said from the doorway:
— Get dressed. Your uncle was crushed at work. He's in the hospital now; we need to make it in time to say goodbye.
We got dressed and went outside. We didn't have a car back then, and taxis wouldn't appear in the village for another 20 years. We went on foot. Ten minutes of brisk walking, and we were climbing to the third floor of the hospital. We followed my father into the ward. On the right, with his head toward the entrance, my uncle lay on an iron bed, so he didn't see us come in. When he saw us, he smiled and started talking:
— I'm fine. I'll definitely get better soon…
We talked for maybe five minutes. A doctor entered the ward and asked us to leave. The door closed behind us. After a while, it opened, and my uncle was carried out on a canvas stretcher, covered with a white sheet with brownish stains. I remember walking behind the stretcher to the first floor and then outside. Then, in the evening darkness, toward the morgue: a terrifying wooden log cabin, looking like a smoke sauna from the outside (and, as it turned out, from the inside). I stayed outside and watched as the stretcher was placed on a wooden table, similar to a sauna bench, standing right against the wall. They turned off the lights inside, and everyone left.
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Many years passed. I grew up and, coming from a family of railway workers, got a job on the railway. About six years later, after changing several professions and organizations, I transferred to the one where my father and late uncle had worked. A few years after that, by a twist of fate, I was appointed as an HSE specialist. To be honest, I knew nothing about this profession — it was a pure gamble.
On my first day, as soon as I was alone in the office, I opened the safe in the corner. I was very curious about what was inside. I dug through it until lunch and came across a logbook with a nondescript title: 'Register of Industrial Accidents.' Flipping through it, I saw a familiar surname on one of the pages. I read the brief circumstances of the accident and put the logbook back.
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I entered the profession slowly and with difficulty. I had no mentor; I had to figure everything out myself. I read, studied, typed — things slowly became clearer. One day, I reached the archives and found a folder with the investigation documents for my uncle's case.
I read how a gondola car with reinforced concrete catenary poles arrived at the station. How the crew was assigned to unload them at a steady pace. How the foreman rushed everyone, not wanting to leave the work for tomorrow (though no one was pushing). How, after a whole day in the cold, the riggers' radios died, and there was no additional lighting — and darkness fell quickly. In the end, during another lift of a pole inside the gondola car, it crushed my uncle. It crushed his pelvis, ribs, and internal organs.
It also stated that the site supervisor was my father. After the accident, he resigned and never wanted to hold a leadership position again.
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I don't know why, but my childhood memory, like that hospital ward door, closed. I don't remember the funeral at all. Only the terrifying, blackened log cabin of the morgue remains in my memory, where my uncle disappeared forever. For many years, I looked back at it fearfully as I walked past. Until the morgue was dismantled, and now in its place is a wasteland overgrown with burdock.