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Russia hostage survivor: 'I'm alive'
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Calls are growing for an investigation into why doctors weren't provided an antidote to the incapacitating gas used in the operation that freed hundreds of hostages held at a Moscow theater by Chechen rebels. Moscow's chief doctor said 115 hostages died from health problems stemming from the gas which was pumped into the building just before the raid. About 400 people remained hospitalized Monday. One of the hostages who survived, Andrei Naumov, spoke Monday with CNN's Wolf Blitzer about his experience. BLITZER: I know it must have been a horrific ordeal for you. Briefly tell our viewers what happened when the Russian military, the commandos, came in and unleashed the gas. NAUMOV: When the gas came in the hole, I saw a small white smoke. It smelled like smoke, and I laid on the floor. And then I remember nothing until the hospital, until the time when I woke up after everything. BLITZER: Do you remember how long? Was that a few seconds or a few minutes? How long did it take before, as best as you can remember, you passed out? NAUMOV: I saw the smoke, maybe 10 seconds, or approximately a little less. Then I remember nothing. Then I woke up in the hospital, maybe after half an hour -- have to guess. BLITZER: Andrei, you say you saw smoke. But did you smell anything? Do you remember a certain smell that the gas might have had? NAUMOV: I smelled something. I smelled something. I smelled smoke, but I don't know now that it was gas, because gas was invisible, and it was only smoke, not gas. BLITZER: Did the Russian troops who used the gas, did they launch the gas from weapons, or were there canisters? How did they throw the gas in there, into the theater? NAUMOV: Oh, I don't know. I think that the gas came from the floor. I don't know. BLITZER: Now, you were in there, what, for some 50 hours, in your seat together with 700 or so other people, and you were held hostage? Were you allowed to move at all during those 50 hours? NAUMOV: We are sitting there. We can do nothing on the seat. Sometimes we have a drink. Sometimes toilet, but to move, we can move only 15 minutes to go to the toilet and back. And the other time we were sitting and sleeping in the chairs. BLITZER: The people who survived, I'm told, based on all of the accounts, were younger people like you. You're only 17 years old and you are healthy. But some of the older people obviously could not withstand the gas, whatever that gas was. Is that right based on what you know? NAUMOV: Yes. It's right, sometimes, because some young people died, and some old people died. There are no rules when people die from this gas or when people not die. This is usual gas which is used for operations. It's a usual gas, not military. But everyone had some reaction on the same gas. Some of us didn't sleep, and the others sleep too long. BLITZER: And how do you feel right now, Andrei? NAUMOV: Now I'm feeling OK. Everything is perfect. I'm alive.
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