Little girl killed in China

[JaneBirkin]

I'm sitting crying having watched a video of a little girl who was hit by two vans in Beijing...apparently 18 people just walked or drove past without stopping to help.

She was 2

I can't bear it, I'm posting to say unless you are feeling very strong, don't watch the video. It was on the ITV news a while back and is on you tube ofr those who want to see it. But I wish I hadn't.

RIP little soul

I'm sorry but tjis is where relativism loses its argument- ahh well you see in the Chinese Culture this lack of humanity towards people is acceptable in some situations.
Having spent time in Asia I was deeply disturbed by the Chinese attitude towards human life and the thirst for blood that means horrific accidents are reported in all their glory in the newspapers.

An incredibly sad event that seems unbelievable- I wish it was not real.
In China and other parts of the world this is acceptable.

Just seen this on the news and came here to see if it was being discussed. Don't know why, I guess just to see if other people had seen and been affected by it. I feel sick and horrified by it, and I've only seen the censored tv version. No intention of looking up the YouTube video but I just can't get the image out of my head. :(

They wont change the title, just so you know. sorry folks.

I don't see any need to change the title. It isn't sensationalist.

However if she had been injured he might have to pay thousands more

That could well be true.

When I lived in BKK a friend was killed by a hit and run drunk driver.

The initial impact was probably survivable.

But the driver reversed back over him, then drove over him a third time, to make sure he was dead.

Because it worked out cheaper that way.

I think pleanty of the people who walked on by did so beciase they had something to lose by not doing so.

When a culprit, any culprit, somebody who can pay compensation, is a more important than the actual guilty party being found and brought to justice, bystanders tend to be motivated into ignoring basic human instinct to help in case they are then accused of having caused the orginal injuries, or exacerbated them by interfering when trying to help.

You can't judge the bystanders in that video by our standards, they do not live in tue same reality that we do. And to be honest even as an outsider, brought up with a different yardstick, live long enough with rampant poverty, deprivation and a stong sense of disposability of life and you find yourself hardening and learning to emotionally withdraw from the things you see.

It is a survival mechanism, it's too hard to feel at what most westerns would call "normal", while living knee deep in a context that would leave you emotionally flayed if you don't detatch from what you see.

I'm not saying under the circs I would have walked past the little girl. But I would have had huge misgivings while going over and my ex husband would have been trying to yank me in the opposite direction terrified of us being plonked with the blame as a convienient scapegoat.

For many of the people who walked past her self preservation probably factored helping her out of the equation.

That's interesting fastweb. And I'm sure you're correct.

If 18 random people walk past an injured child, who I am to say that in the exact same circumstances, I wouldn't do the same?

Time and time again history has proven that even so-called good people can do very bad things in certain circumstances.

Fascinating post fastweb.

My mother, who lived in that province for eight years, said that whoever took her to hospital would have to pay for her treatment.

Are there no ambulances?

No National Health system....

We are very lucky.

China has no national debt either.

I wish I didnt watch it last nite too. I was crying for an hour and woke up at 5am thinking about it. Doesnt help when im pg too.

I've read online that in china there have been cases of bystanders who have helped someone who's had an accident having to contribute towards medical costs.

Yep bystander apathy, very popular in psychology courses, lots of examples in all countries. People will happily step over a person who is lying down for fear the person is drunk or something or because everyone else is ignoring and they don't want to get involved.

How anyone could walk past a bleeding and unconscious 2 year old is beyond me, didn't watch the video the story alone had me in tears poor thing.

IloveTIFFANY

" People using the ambulance service must pay the driver in RMB cash upon arrival at the hospital. In general, you can request the ambulance to take you to a specific hospital. To call an ambulance"

"Upon arrival to an emergency room in China you will be asked to make a deposit before you/the patient is checked-in. We recommend that you always have on hand an envelope with at least 20,000 RMB that you can take with you in an emergency situation"

From here
www.parkwayhealth.cn/medical-emergencies-in-shanghai.php

How awful to see the effects of a system where healthcare is so expensive that people are left to die because no one can afford to pay for it.

it does put a different perspective on it; if you were living on the edge of severe poverty, would you stop and help if you knew that the cost of someone else's healthcare could mean no food/healthcare/education for your own children?

Interesting that the only person who stopped to pick her up was so poor (a rubbish collector (scavenger?) that she perhaps had nothing to lose - no money that could be taken from her?

This is a horrible education!!

It certainly makes you think doesn't it ilove :(

god, it's so sad.

so if you can't afford the healthcare is it quite literally the case that they just turn you away? or are there places set up that will offer free healthcare to those who need it most?

It's very sad and yes, thought provoking!

Can you imagine falling sick on a trip to china? It hadn't even occured to me about the cost/money involved.

According to the Daily Mail, the title for the post is now clinically correct

link

An interesting perspective on how the cost and liability around accidents works. I?d imagine that plays a big part in what happened and if so it?s a wrong-headed and disgraceful system.
Certainly I?d hate to think it was that some cultures were just innately brutal and callous.

I grew up in an extremely poor (Least Developed status) African county. When I was a teenager I saw a little girl, about eight years old, hit by a bus. She was on the road on the brow of a hill, the bus was going quite fast - there was no chance to avoid her and she was hit straight on and flung clear to the side of the road. The bus slammed on it's brakes so hard, hurtled to a stop and the bus driver got out and just sprinted flat-out to her, as did every other adult bystander there. She was taken straight to a hospital in another vehicle (no ambulances in that country at the time).
She died. A family friend was the doctor on duty at the time and told me. She was still alive when she was brought in but her head injuries were too severe.
It was a desperately sad and shocking thing to witness, and is still with me almost twenty years later. But it would not even have occurred to me that people might have acted differently. God knows how it would have been if people had treated her like a piece of roadside garbage not somebody's little girl.

So I won't accept being in a poor, non-western country as an excuse. Where I grew up most people are poor but life is still precious.

xkittyx. If you go to China you may still have the impression that they are callous and brutal. The rich are callous and brutal, I wouldn't have been surprised if a few Mercedes drove by tbh.

They seem to have very little regard for life. Their human rights record shows that but there is something seriously seriously wrong in society when 18 people will walk past an injured toddler lying in the gutter :(