General Gamov dies in Sapporo hospital

Russian Border Guards General Vitaly Gamov died of burns on Tuesday in a hospital in Sapporo, Japan. According to Russia's Consul General to Sapporo Nail Latypov, death resulted from "pulmonary insufficiency and cardiac arrest." General Gamov and his wife, Larisa, were rushed to Sapporo, a city on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on the night of May 21st, when someone threw three Molotov cocktails into the window of their flat. The couple was suffering from severe burns, burns of upper respiratory tracts, and third-degree shock.

Vitaly Gamov was treated in the hospital of the Medical University of Sapporo. On Tuesday morning, he was to undergo skin transplantation, which was cancelled when his condition worsened on the night of May 28th. Once again, doctors had to raise the oxygen level in his resuscitation apparatus to maximum, just like several days ago when the general's condition had been critical.

The general's wife had been moved to a hospital in Tokyo, where she underwent -- "rather successfully," as doctors put it -- skin transplantation surgery last week. She will undergo yet another operation this week.