“I was the smallest one there and you learned not to show any emotion, whether you were sad or happy,” says Oksana Masters as she describes the Ukrainian orphanage where she suffered terrible abuse before being rescued and taken to America.
Masters, who was born in the shadow of Chornobyl’s nuclear plant in 1989 and suffered multiple birth defects caused by radiation, is the most decorated US Paralympic athlete after excelling in four summer and winter sports, winning 17 medals.
