Many houses in the first community of Dahe Village collapsed.
Zhang Haiji (center) rummages through the rubble of his collapsed house for usable food.
A 6.2 magnitude earthquake destroyed the homes of many people in Jishishan County. Before the arrival of the rescue force, the villagers spontaneously participated in the rescue of people, which became the hope for the lives of the trapped people under the ruins in the cold night.
In Dahe Village, Dahejia Town, villager Han Peili rescued his neighbors from clods of soil and wood with his wounded and bleeding hands, and took the wounded to seek medical treatment. He told Nandu and N video reporters, "I have never encountered such a big thing when I am so big, and I have never been so seriously injured." ”
On the evening of December 21, some people in the village drove to deliver supplies, while others rummaged through the rubble of their homes in search of usable meat and vegetables. Most of them live in tents in the settlements. As night falls, many free noodle stalls outside the tent are busy making dinner for everyone, the lights inside the tent are on, and the heat from the charcoal fire in the stove is enough to withstand the cold winter night.
Dig people out of the ruins
On the evening of the third day after the earthquake, several villagers were rummaging through the ruins of a community in Dahe Village, Dahejia Township. There are bags of beef and vegetables on the empty yard next to it.
This is the first time that the eldest mother, Zhang Haiji, has returned home since the earthquake, and they are currently living in tents at the resettlement site in the town square. "I still have to come back to see the situation," she told a reporter from Nandu, adding that the meat and vegetables next to her had just been dug out of the refrigerator in the ruins and were still edible.
It was from this rubble that she rescued her 7-year-old grandson shortly after the earthquake. Neighbors helped rescue her father, who is in his 70s, and her little niece, who is 5 years old.
On the night of the earthquake, Ms. Zhang's father and niece were guests at her home, and because of the cold weather, she put them and her grandson in an adobe house with ondol ondol and slept in an unheated brick house. Hearing two loud "bangs" in the middle of the night, she hurried out. "My father, niece, and grandson are all out of sight, and the house is out of sight. ”
Her grandson's location was close to her, and he was not buried deeply, so she hurriedly went to dig up the clods of soil that had been pressed on her grandson's body, and it took about twenty minutes to finally dig out her grandson.
Finding that her grandson was fine, she turned to her father and niece, shouting "help" while digging up clods. The neighbors in the neighborhood were attracted by her cries for help, and the gate was blocked by wood and could not be opened, so the neighbors climbed into the yard through the collapsed courtyard wall.
The neighbor's aunt Manu recalled the scene to the reporter of the southern capital, and still couldn't help wiping her tears in distress. "By the time I arrived, her grandson had already been rescued, and her niece was crushed by a log and her face was covered in blood. The piece of wood was pressed by the clod of earth again, and neither Manu could move it nor Zhang Haiji.
At this time, neighbor Han Peili also arrived. Manu turned on the mobile phone light for the teeth, Han Peili went to move the wood, and soon the little girl was rescued. Due to the dark light, it was impossible to see the specific injury, and Han Peili could only vaguely see that the girl "had soil and blood mixed with her face, and she didn't cry."
Immediately afterwards, several people rescued Zhang Haiji's father from the clod. Subsequently, several people ran to other neighbors' houses to save people.
Next door, a couple in their 50s and their grandson were also buried. Han Peili was the first to rush, he shouted while digging, and after a while, no one responded.
At this time, Zhang Haiji came to him, because his niece was vomiting, and hoped that he could drive him to the hospital for first aid. Considering that many people had rushed over to help save people, he quickly turned back and took the little girl to the hospital first.
It is understood that the 50-year-old couple who were buried later were unfortunately killed, but their grandson was rescued. Because this grandmother always held him in her arms.
"Hands are bleeding all the time"
At the time of the earthquake, Han Peili was not actually at home. He told a reporter from Nandu that he was chatting with friends in a shop in the town at the time.
"There was no sign at all, the power went out and it looked like people were going to be thrown upside down from their stools. Han Peili only wanted to run out, the glass door of the shop was knocked down, he couldn't see anything when he ran out, and the earthquake shook so badly that when he fell, his palm just pressed against the glass section, and he immediately continued to bleed.
Worried about the safety of his wife and daughter at home, he didn't care about his hand injury, so he quickly ran back to the car, pulled a handful of paper to try to stop the bleeding, and then drove home with one hand.
When he returned to the village, many houses had collapsed and the car could no longer drive in, so he parked the car at the entrance of the village and ran in himself.
Fortunately, when Han Peili returned home, his wife and daughter had escaped safely, but his house had collapsed. He didn't have time to check further, so he ran to a neighbor's house to help save people.
Upon learning that Zhang Haiji's niece was injured and vomited, he realized that the little girl's injuries might not be simple. "She had a big gash on her head, and then she vomited, so she might have something wrong with her brain. This condition cannot be delayed. ”
At that time, many neighbors' cars were parked outside their houses and were smashed by collapsed walls and windows, but only his car parked on the street was spared. He and Zhang Haiji took turns to carry the little girl to the entrance of the village, entered the car, pulled a blanket to wrap it, and drove all the way to the town health center.
"The health center has also become a dangerous house, doctors are afraid to go in, the courtyard is in chaos, and there are wounded people everywhere. Later, Han Peili found a doctor and simply bandaged the wounds on his hands and the little girl's head. "The doctor said that he had no choice but to go to another hospital for our injuries. ”
It's too cold outside. Considering that there were still many wounded in the village, he carried the little girl back to the car and returned to the village. This time, including Zhang Haiji's father and grandson, as well as the boy who escaped the catastrophe in his grandmother's arms, and an elderly man who was seriously injured, he changed into his cousin's flatbed pickup truck, loaded a dozen people and rushed to the health center again.
A female doctor performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a seriously injured elderly man, and after a while, the old man was gone. Zhang Haiji stayed here to accompany his niece for the infusion, while Han Peili continued to drive everyone to the town square.
It was about 3 a.m. Along the way, Han Peili's hands have been bleeding. "I didn't feel any pain, and I didn't care about it. ”
Doctors at a clinic near the square looked at his injuries. "He said that your blood vessel has been cut, this can't be done, you need to find a place to suture it as soon as possible. He put a tape around my wrist and told me to untie it every 40 minutes to let the blood circulate or my hand would die. ”
Moved into temporary settlements together
Han Peili left the flatbed truck in the square to shelter people from the cold, and he asked a friend to drive him to the county to seek medical treatment. When they arrived at Jishishan County People's Hospital, it was overcrowded, and they had no choice but to continue to Linxia Prefecture People's Hospital, and it was 5 o'clock in the morning.
The Linxia Prefecture People's Hospital was also full of people waiting in line for surgery, and it would take two hours for Han Peili's turn. Later, a doctor came out and looked at the wound and said, "You can't wait two hours, it's too long." The doctor took him to a nearby room with a cast and stitched up his wound. After relaxing, the dizziness caused by excessive blood loss suddenly hit him.
After the doctor's diagnosis, Han Peili's left palm was cut off by the main blood vessels, and the tendons and veins were also injured. Three days later, his left hand was still wrapped in thick gauze, and his little finger was still unconscious. The doctor said it would take about 20 days for the wound to heal, and there might be another surgery after that.
On the other side, not long after Han Peili left, Zhang Long, Zhang Haiji's younger brother and the little girl's father, also drove to the Dahe Town Health Center. He told the reporter that his daughter was receiving an infusion at that time, but because the temperature was too low, "the water in the hanging needle did not go", so he could only light a fire on the side to raise the surrounding temperature.
Later, he took his daughter and chose to rush to Linxia Prefecture People's Hospital.
In the first two days, my daughter's condition was not optimistic, she vomited frequently, and X-rays showed two hemorrhage spots in the brain. At 12:30 on the 21st, my daughter was transferred to Landa Hospital in Lanzhou, where she needed to be observed for 72 hours, and if she did not get better, she would have to undergo craniotomy. Zhang Haiji and Zhang Long's father suffered multiple rib fractures that injured his lungs, and are still being treated at Linxia Prefecture People's Hospital. Fortunately, both of their lives were saved temporarily.
After being hospitalized for many days, Han Peili still didn't know what the damage to his home was. "I've never been so big and I've never been so badly injured. ”
On the evening of the 21st, someone in the village drove a car to deliver supplies, and the houses that had not yet collapsed were also appraised and identified, and most of them were labeled with "no occupancy".
Most of the affected villagers in the vicinity have moved into resettlement sites in the square. As night fell, many caring enterprises and restaurants set up free noodle stalls outside the tent, and everyone queued up in an orderly manner to receive them. Walking into the tent, the lights were on and the charcoal fire in the stove was lit.
Zhang Haiji found a lot of meat and vegetables from the refrigerator and brought them all back to the tent, which she said could make a delicious meal for everyone.
Co-ordinator: Nandu reporter Xiang Xueni Chen Yan
Written by: Nandu reporter Chen Yan
Photographer: Nandu reporter Xu Jie
Producer: Nandu Instant