15 Years in a Fridge

Vitaly Matyukhin is an Arkhangelsk resident who has not seen the sun for fifteen years. Neighbors shun his household, while his little son cannot understand why he always have to wrap up in warm clothes before seeing his dad.

Suffering a rare disorder — he cannot stand the heat and sunlight — Matyukhin has been confined to a self-built giant fridge for over 15 years now, the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported on Friday.

Matyukhin seems to be the only man in Russia’s northern city of Arkhangelsk who gets no kicks from the extraordinarily warm September weather. Instead, he is looking forwarded to snowy winter days. He leaves his shelter only by night, his neighbors say.

The man is suffering a rare heat exchange disorder and cannot stand temperatures over 5 degrees Celsius. For nearly fifteen years no, Matyukhin has been living in a fridge.

Born in Krasnodar in Russian South, Matyukhin graduated from a construction college. One fine day, the youth suffered a sunstroke that triggered all his woes.

Doctors could not help him. They consulted their colleagues in other cities across the country and abroad. At some point it transpired that a similar case had been earlier registered in the U.S. where doctors, too, could not figure out how to alleviate the patient’s suffering. But as the man was able to afford expensive treatment he had a special suit with cold air supplied inside from cylinders made for him.

Mityukhin was never invited to the U.S. Instead, he was given a paper that vaguely stated he was suffering what was worded as “a heat exchange disorder”, and set out to build a refrigerator where he could live.

Read the complete article at Mosnews.com