Despite losing both arms, Aigerym Bibatyrova is known for her optimism and resilience. Now a mother of five, she shared her story in a recent episode of the Baisemiz LIVE podcast.
Aigerym said she has never regretted losing her arms, even after living with the disability for 25 years. She credits her parents for helping her grow up without feeling different from others or developing insecurities about her condition.
“The support of my parents helped me accept myself,” she said. “They, along with my siblings and friends, never treated me as someone who was missing both arms.”
The accident that changed her life
Aigerym also recounted the accident that led to the loss of her arms when she was 13 years old.
The incident occurred on Nov. 5. Her family lived near railroad tracks, and she had gone to a store to buy matches. On her way back, she noticed a group of children gathered near the railway.
Children at the time sometimes tied strips of cassette tape to pigeons and released the birds into the air as part of a game. On that day, several pigeons became entangled near electrified railway infrastructure above the tracks.
Two neighborhood children — a 12-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy — were trying to free the birds. They first attempted to knock them loose with stones and metal objects, but were unsuccessful.
When Aigerym arrived, she joined their efforts. As the three children tried to move a metal structure, they came into contact with a high-voltage electrical current.
“The shock was so powerful that it threw us several meters away,” she recalled.
Because Aigerym was holding the metal object at the moment of contact, she suffered the most severe injuries. The electrical current traveled through her arms, causing extensive tissue and bone damage.
Nine surgeries and a long recovery
Aigerym underwent nine surgeries following the accident.
Doctors were ultimately forced to amputate her arms after the damage continued to spread.
Despite the severity of her injuries, she remembers one detail from her recovery that she considers almost miraculous.
According to Aigerym, the pigeons the children had tried to save remained outside the hospital ward where they were being treated.
“It felt like a miracle — the pigeons we had rescued stayed outside the window of the hospital ward where we were recovering for 13 days. It’s hard to explain rationally. It was as if those birds were thanking us,” Aigerym said. “We saved those birds, and somehow we survived. A person exposed to 25,000 volts could have been burned to death.”
‘I do not regret it’
When asked whether the tragedy might have been avoided if no one had tried to rescue the pigeons, Aigerym said she has no regrets.
“I do not regret that this happened at all,” she said. “The most important thing is that we felt compassion for those pigeons and that we saved them.”
Asked whether she would try to save the birds again if faced with the same situation, Aigerym said she probably would.
Read also: A class act in Almaty: Mbappé’s heartwarming meeting with young wheelchair-bound fan.
