Men save others on collapsed Jiujiang Bridge
By Guan Xiaomeng (chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2007-06-22 13:28
A picture from Sohu's website shows a photo montage of Xie Fengyun (L) and Wang Wentian in front of their truck. When the Jiejiang Bridge collapsed, they were hailed as heroes stopping eight vehicles from falling into the water.
They could hardly be compared to action heroes in those Hollywood disaster films, but they did save lives in an accident that could have happened in a movie.
Witnesses who saw the Jiujiang Bridge collapse remember seeing two men who were standing at the edge of the collapsed section of the bridge, warning others to stop.
They managed to stop eight vehicles from dropping off the broken section of the bridge in south China's Guangdong Province last Friday. Four vehicles fell into the water, nine people drowned, and three confirmed dead.
Wang Weitian, 52, Xie Fengyun, 60, and Wang's son-in-law all from Henan Province were driving their delivery van at 5:10am on the bridge connecting Heshan and Foshan City when a boat laden with sand navigated out of the main channel and hit part of the bridge's structure.
"It was smoggy, and we were driving very slowly," recalled Xie's son-in-law, who was driving the van. "A container truck passed us but I was surprised that it vanished immediately because I couldn't see its tail light, so I braked."
In the heavy fog, the three men went out to see what had happened and saw the river water was just six meters ahead of them.
"Is the tide coming?" they exclaimed. "Oh! No! The bridge has collapsed! And the container truck has fallen into the water!" the men cried out, worried they would fall in too.
They said they didn't hear anything when the bridge broke and felt fortunate to narrowly escape falling off the bridge. After they quickly recovered from their shock, they called the police and then remained at the scene to stop others from going any further.
As they spoke with a strong Henan accent, many drivers couldn't understand what they were saying.
"They were very nervous to see us waving at them," said Wang. "It is not because of the accident - actually they had no awareness of it at all. They thought we were trying to stop and rob them," he said with a smile.
The men prevent eight vehicles from dropping off the bridge, including vans, cars and a motorcycle.
"We didn't stop to think about ourselves on the uneven remaining section of the bridge. All we thought about was the vehicles approaching," Wang said during an interview with Guangzhou Daily. "We just couldn't just stand by to see them fall into the water."
The men's heroic deed generated an outpouring of comments on Sina, one of China's biggest portal websites, and the story generated the most hits on dahe.cn based in Henan.
"If not for them, a few more families might have lost their loved ones. As a driver myself, I sincerely thank them!" said a Sohu netizen.
The man who rode the motorcycle stopped by the three men, said he would have never met his wife if he hadn't been stopped. "My wife passed the bridge just 10 minutes before it collapsed and I was stopped just meters ahead of the broken section."
Dahe.cn attempted to contact the survivors on the broken bridge to tell their stories with the three Henan men.
A commentary on Beijing News was titled: "The bridge is broken, but fortunately there is human compassion."
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