Paralympic Champion Born After Chernobyl Disaster with Missing Bones Told Parents She Had Died

American Paralympic athlete Oksana Masters was born without her shinbones following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, with her birth parents told she had died at birth. Masters, who later moved to the United States, has become a successful Paralympic competitor despite physical disabilities linked to radiation exposure from the nuclear catastrophe. Her life story includes years in an orphanage and abuse before finding success in Paralympic sports. When Masters watched the television series about Chernobyl depicting the nuclear disaster, she understood many of the connections to events that occurred after the reactor explosion, despite not being alive at the time and having spent most of her life in America.