Mixed emotions: Woman reflects on disaster and adoption

“WITHOUT her, I wouldn’t be here.”

Those were the simple but powerful words from Elena Canty, 21, yesterday, as she paid tribute to the woman who saved her from a bleak future in a Ukrainian institution more than 15 years ago.

Elena was born in Belarus in 1990 with brittle bones and scoliosis — four years after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.