Yue Yue, Chinese toddler run over in hit-and-run, believed to be stable
Update, Wednesday, 1:20 p.m.
Yue Yue is now believed to be braindead. Read the full report here.
Two-year-old Yue Yue, who was left bleeding on the road after a hit-and-run accident Thursday, is now showing signs of stability, China Daily reported Tuesday. Australian news site the Herald Sun, however, continued to report that she was dead.
Surveillance camera footage of the incident shows the toddler being hit by a white van Thursday in Foshan in Guandong Province, then being hit by another van and ignored by nearly 20 passersby for seven excruciating minutes before she was given help.
The camera provoked outrage and soul-searching in China Monday, as many wondered why no one had helped the child except a “good Samaritan” trash collector who moved her bleeding body from the road.
Chen Xianmei, the trash collecter who helped Yue Yue, has been given a reward of 10,000 yuan ($1,570) by government officials for her good deed.
Conflicting reports about the incident have only made the incident more controversial.
China Daily confidently reported the details of Yue Yue’s recovery Tuesday:
Yue Yue has regained the ability to take weak breaths with the help of respirator. The rest of her condition, including blood pressure and heart beat, shows signs of stability.
But other news outlets continued to report she was dead, and Shanghaiist, an English-language blog in China that has been covering the story since it began, has not yet posted an update today about her health.
China Daily is a state-run paper sometimes referred to as the government's mouthpiece.
China Daily also reported that both drivers who hit Yue Yue have now been identified, and say they are sorry for the incident and didn’t see the child in the road.
The Shanghaiist, however, has a different story. The first driver apparently had just broken up with his girlfriend and was on his cell phone when he hit Yue Yue. The Shanghaiist reports the driver had placed a call to Yue Yue’s father to tell him he would not surrender, but would give him some money, saying:
You saw that girl on the CCTV footage, she didn't see where she was going, you know. I was on the phone when it happened, I didn't mean it. When I realized I had knocked her down, I thought I'd go down to see how she was. Then when I saw that she was already bleeding, I decided to just step on the gas pedal and escape seeing that nobody was around me.
China Daily doesn’t leave out the apathetic passersby out of the story.
But the newspaper reports that each passerby hadn’t seen the girl lying on the road because it was too dark to see. Those who have watched the video point out that a motorcyclist actually makes a circle around the girl body’s to avoid it, and other passersby are clearly seen scurrying past.
Since the video was released yesterday, many have blamed the response by passersby on the common fear in China that citizens who help an injured person will be blamed for the injuries.
In 2006, a man who helped an elderly woman to the hospital was accused of pushing her, dragged to court by her family, and forced to pay a large share of her medical bills.
Watch the original video of the hit-and-run below. WARNING: Contains graphic content.
By 01:30 PM ET, 10/18/2011
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