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Condition of Russian athlete who survived Wed jet crash stabilizes

Alexander Galimov and flight engineer Alexander Sizov are the only two persons who survived Wednesday's jet crash near the city of Yaroslavl

MOSCOW, September 8 (Itar-Tass) — Bodily condition of the Russian hockey player Alexander Galimov, 26, who survived an air crash Wednesday afternoon, has stabilized and physicians have received an opportunity to struggle for his life, Dr Valery Kubyshkin, director the Moscow-based Vishnevsky Surgery Institute told reporters Thursday.

Alexander Galimov and flight engineer Alexander Sizov are the only two persons who survived Wednesday's jet crash near the city of Yaroslavl, some 260 km norhteast off Moscow. A Yakovlev-42 medium-range jet caught blaze and fell apart into three sections in the air seconds after taking off from the Yaroslavl airport.

The crash wiped out Russia's top-rated Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team in full force, except Galimov. The complete death toll stands at 43.

"The hockey player is in a very heavy condition but the splendid work of doctors in Yaroslavl and the assistance of Prof. Alexeyev, the chief of the Vishnevsky Burns Treatment Center who went to Yaroslavl to help them has made it possible to attain some stabilization and now we have an opportunity to struggle for Galimov's life," Dr Kubyshkin said.

He told the reporters that the complex character of Galimov's traumas makes any forecasting scarcely possible but the fact that some stabilization has been achieved inspires optimism.