For most people, seconds are just short moments; but sometimes one second is the distance between life and death. Over the past winter break, a student from Tianjin University saved one child’s life within seconds in Cangzhou, Hebei Province, which has gone viral in the social media - WeChat moments.
The story dates back a month ago, February 8th, 2018 at 4:36 pm, one moment that was forever engraved on the heart of Ms. Xu and her son, who come from County Haixing, Cangzhou, Hebei Province. At the time, she was shopping in a local mall with her ten-year-old son. Unexpectedly, her son’s left foot accidentally got stuck in the escalator when going to the fourth floor. The situation was urgent as the escalator would soon reach the fourth floor. Xu struggled to pull her son out, but failed, and she screamed to ask others to shut down the machine, yet no one reacted promptly. The child was just about to lose his foot, but that was when a young man in a grey cotton coat showed up. He swiftly jumped over to the child, grasped the child’s leg, pulled out the foot with all his strength finally saving the child. “The left sock got stuck in the elevator, and my son’s foot would have been lost a minute later,” said Xu, who still feels tremendous fear when she recalls the whole situation.
To Xu’s regret, the young hero silently slipped away after he ensured the child’s safety, and Xu was so frightened at the whole thing that she didn’t even get the chance to see the hero and say “Thank you”. Later, Xu checked the surveillance of the shopping center trying to find the kind hero who saved her son’s life. Also, she posted a short message to “Find the kindness stranger” in her own social media WeChat. She said, “If I couldn’t find the hero, I would never feel peaceful again.” Fortunately, one of Xu’s friend happened to know the rescuer and with his help, Xu finally managed to find the hero--Qi Mingming, a postgraduate student at Tianjin University majoring in Environmental Engineering.
On February 13th, Xu went to Qi’s house with a pennant to express her gratefulness. At first sight of “the rescuer”, Xu was overjoyed and kept saying “thank you, thank you”. According to Xu, on the pennant was written “Save people from danger, incarnate virtues in action”. Those were the words Xu as a mother always wanted to say to Qi. In conversations, Qi recalled what happened that day. “Actually, I didn’t think about much other than saving the child. It was so close, and a minute later, he could have lost a foot”. But it is just that “didn’t think too much” that consequently saved one child’s life. To Qi’s surprise, he didn’t expect the mother could be so persistent that she could find him. “In fact, I feel very good about doing a kind thing, but I never wanted any reward, so I left when I knew the child was fine.”
As a matter of fact, Qi Mingming is a kind person in his life. Zhang Xiaohui, who works with Qi in lab said, “He is a warm-hearted man in the school, and we often ask him for help. Things like grabbing a delivery, repairing a chair, or removing desks, he always shows up to help, and even when he sees a fallen shared bike, he would stand it up”. That’s also why she didn’t feel great surprise when she heard of the whole miraculous story.
This March 5th is the 55th anniversary of “Follow the example of Comrade Lei Feng” activity. For Qi, he views the Leifeng Spirit in the new era as “the spirit of contribution.” Enthusiasm for charity, willingness to help, supporting the poor, Samaritanism, kindness to people, contribution to society, all of them represent Leifeng Spirit. But in Qi’s eyes, Leifeng Spirit is more of an attitude, the attitude to treating one’s work with full responsibility. As a student, Qi believes that we should study hard and dive deep into the subject we are working on; in our daily lives, we should be polite and modest to others, do good things even if it is something little, and live a thrifty and industrious life.
By: Ma Junjun
Editors: Qin Mian and Keith Harrington
