Risking her life to save 80 others
Updated: 2008-01-23 10:59
Fang Yuming, a village woman in Hubei Province, risked her life to stop two travel coaches from a dangerous rockfall.
The 36-year-old owned a water station in the mountains of Southwest of Hubei Province.
On the night of December 10, she was adding water for a truck and suddenly heard unusual sounds coming from the nearby mountain.
Fang immediately realized a landslide occurred. Just at that moment, a coach travelling on its way to Chongqing, drove towards the area in high speed, unaware of the danger ahead.
The woman didn’t run for her life but stood in the middle of the road, waving and shouting to the driver to stop the coach.
However, the coach driver misunderstood her, thinking she was trying to get him to add more water into his vehicle and so he didn’t stop. Fang was very anxious and ran after the bus shouting, “Stop! Danger! The rocks are going to fall!”
Finally the coach stopped. Fang caught up to the driver and trying to catch her breath said, “Look at the mountain, it’s going to…” And before she could finish her sentence, hundreds of rocks began falling down the mountain, one of them landing just 10 meters away from the bus, which frightened the driver.
Just at that time, a second coach approached the first one. Fang turned around and stood in the middle of the road again to warn the driver stop. Luckily, as soon as the second one stopped, stones fell down in front of the bus but did not hurt anyone.
In the end 80 passengers were saved. Getting off from the coaches, many people who were in shock, trembled and cried. When they calmed down, many passengers tried to give Fang some money to thank her for saving their lives. But Fang declined.
And even though the provincial government rewarded her with 10,000 yuan ($1,370) for her heroic deed, Fang donated the money towards the repairs of a bridge in her village.
“I just did what I should do,” said Fang. “If I fled and did not stop the coaches, all the 80 passengers would probably be dead or badly injured. In that case, I would not forgive myself for the rest of my life.”|
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