A Nanjing policeman became something of a hero in the past few days, helping to save the life of a young boy by carrying him in his arms and sprinting at full pelt to a nearby hospital in the scorching summer heat and stifling humidity.
The incident occurred on 12 June in Nanjing’s far-flung southerly district of Gaochun. There, a malfunctioning lift had come close to crushing a young boy when the closing doors failed to detect him.
Sustaining considerable injuries and significant blood loss, the boy’s mother sought help from police patrolling nearby with the child in her arms, reports The Paper.
Sensing the urgency of the situation, officer Song Changyun immediately took the boy and cradled him while running at top speed to a hospital emergency department. The boy’s timely arrival to the hospital meant he was soon out of danger.
In other lift-related news in Nanjing, a young takeout food delivery man has received a hefty fine for abuse of property while engaged in his daily work.
Venting his emotions because of family conflicts, the delivery guy punched and kicked the doors and interior of a lift in Nanjing and was captured on video doing so. Police quickly traced the offender and wasted no time in issuing him with a ¥15,000 fixed penalty.
The fine may sound excessive but such actions can lead to lifts malfunctioning, leaving people trapped therein. Last year, some 33.42 percent of incidents in which people were trapped in lifts in Nanjing were the result of human actions. Most common are damage made to lift doors or improper disposal of waste, both of which can cause lift doors to jam.
In 2020, Nanjing’s Elevator Emergency Response Centre attended to an average of 20 incidents each day in which people were trapped in lifts. Rescuers took an average of just under 11 minutes to reach each scene.
The monthly average failure rate of lifts in Nanjing last year stood at 0.63 percent. Lifts which have been in use for more than 15 years are far more likely to break down, with a failure rate of 1.21 percent. As reported by China Economics Net in April of this year, at the end of 2020, there were 116,175 lifts in use in Nanjing.
