TWO students each received a 10,000 yuan (US$1,516) reward Wednesday for helping an old woman who had tripped and fallen in Luohu District on Jan. 1.
The boys, Zhou Tiancheng and Luo Wei, helped Huang Yuzhen, 78, after she fell and took her to hospital. They were also presented with awards for being outstanding members of the Communist Youth League Luohu Committee.
Zhou and Luo, both Senior 3 students at Luohu Foreign Languages School, saw Huang lying on the street bleeding from her injuries at the intersection of Guiwei Road and Jubao Road in Luohu District at about 11 a.m. Jan. 1, with no help offered by passing pedestrians.
They helped her up and took her to Liantang Hospital.
They waited until she had been treated and then took her to her home in Pengxing Garden and called her family. They left a note reminding the family members to take Huang for a medical check the next day.
Huang s daughter-in-law, Mai Fengdi, found Zhou and Luo two days later and went to thank them. The boys actions did not go without notice.
Their action represented the very valuable spirit of helping others, which should be learned by all residents in Shenzhen, said Zhang Zhenfang, director general of the city s Bravery Foundation, a government fund to reward people who help others.
Zhou and Luo donated the reward money to two poor high- school students in Guizhou Province. The two poor students would each receive 100 yuan a month for the next three years.
The students actions reignited discussion about helping people in distress following the death of an elderly man who had a fall in a housing estate in Futian District and was not helped by people passing by.
According to a survey conducted at the end of last year by Chinese writer Zheng Yuanjie, 60 percent of netizens said they would not help elderly people in distress because they were afraid of being held responsible.
In 2006, a young man named Peng Yu went to the aid of an elderly woman who fell when boarding a bus in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. The woman later sued him claiming he had hit her and caused her to fall. Peng was later ordered by a court to pay the woman 45,876 yuan.
In the past, I thought I would help if there were witnesses but would just call an ambulance if there was none. But these two boys changed my mind. After all, everyone will become old and need help and it will be better if we do more good deeds, Mai said.
Some residents questioned whether the boys should have been rewarded with such large sums just for helping an elderly woman. It was indeed a large reward. But in the current social environment, most people feel at risk if they help others, but these two boys helped immediately without hesitation. I think they are worthy of it, Zhang Zhenfeng said.
