8-foot-4-inch Leonid Stadnik sees glimmer of hope for his future (05/30/04)

8-foot-4-inch Leonid Stadnik sees glimmer of hope for his future

by Anna Ketz

PODOLIANTSI, Ukraine - His life now has two parts: before and after. Before there was despair. Now there is a glimmer of hope. The fate of Leonid Stadnik, an 8-foot-4-inch tall resident of the tiny village of Podoliantsi in Ukraine's northwestern Zhytomyr Oblast, has dramatically changed since journalists discovered his plight less than a month ago.

"My height was God's penalty, my life had no sense," he asserted in explaining his situation until now.

Today he is 33 and still growing. As a youth, Leonid had enjoyed good health, but when he was 14, he underwent brain surgery. Experts believe it stimulated his pituitary gland, which has produced much higher than normal levels of growth hormone ever since. But he never visited a doctor after he began to grow because as he described it, for all practical purposes he became chained to his home village as he grew taller and taller and taller. "Taking a bus for me is the same as getting into a car's trunk for a normal person," explained Mr. Stadiuk.

He once went to Zhytomyr to participate in the tallest man contest, which he easily won. It only drove him to despair. "They looked at me as if I were a clown. I wished I could disappear," he said.

His gigantism has caused other problems as well. He weighs 440 pounds, which puts a huge strain on his legs. He has had problems recovering from a recently broken leg. He also suffers from recurring pain in his knees. "My tendons don't keep pace with my rapidly growing bone tissue," he explained.

Things have begun to change quickly for Mr. Stadnik since the news of the giant from Ukraine hit the international news wires. After journalists' reports reached a specialized institute in Germany, it expressed a willingness to treat the Ukrainian citizen cost-free.

Mr. Stadnik, whose bashful and reticent personality belies his overbearing physical appearance, looked rather more embarrassed than happy when told the news. "I never expected that my dreams might come true one day," he commented.

The stories of Mr. Stadnik's plight have brought sympathetic responses even from the Ukrainian diaspora.

"I feel like I should go to Ukraine to help Leonid," said Len Wasylyk, a Ukrainian from Toronto who e-mailed this reporter. Mr. Wasylyk, whose grandparents emigrated to Canada at the beginning of the last century said that Mr. Stadnik's story had "captured my heart."

Being more than eight feet tall is no easy task. Mr. Stadnik sleeps on two beds joined lengthwise. He moves in a crouch through the small one-story house that he shares with his mother, Halyna. His fingers are so large that he couldn't manage to press the buttons on a journalist's cell phone. He holds a three quart jar as if it were a water glass. In his hands his large watchdog looks like a puppy.

His mother worries that he will never find a girl. Her other constant headache is finding proper clothing for her son. He can't buy it in a store and to sew it requires three times the normal amount of cloth. Recent measurements show that Mr. Stadnik is already 7 inches taller than Radhouane Charbib of Tunisia, listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest living man. He is also gaining on the 8-foot-11-inch Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in history.

"The sleeves and pants of my two-year-old suit are now 10 centimeters too short," said Mr. Stadnik.

Although he once was able to work as a veterinarian at a cattle farm, he had to quit three years ago after his feet were frostbitten because he wasn't able to afford proper shoes for his 17-inch feet. This month he finally got a good pair, paid for by some local businessmen. They cost $200 - the equivalent of about seven months' worth of the tiny pension that Mr. Stadnik receives from the government.

Trying to maintain the life of a typical villager, he performs the usual routines of country life, busying himself with the garden, caring for cows and pigs, helping neighbors treat their domestic animals. He seeks relaxation and consolation in reading, cultivating exotic plants and tenderly looking after his wee pet parakeet. His neighbors describe him as "very sensitive, open-hearted man; a vulnerable soul."

They are trying to arrange a trip for him to the Carpathian mountains. They believe it will help him to understand that there's something in the world taller than him.

| Home Page |