A 46-year-old lady, Wang Yuling, from Nanjing, drowned on 27 June in Pattaya, Thailand, while attempting to save the life of a little Chinese girl. At the hotel where Wang was staying, she saw a little girl struggling to swim in the pool. Laden with her bag and camera, Wang jumped into the pool.
Surveillance footage shows both the child and Wang struggling to keep their heads above the water for quite some time. The child eventually manages to reach the edge of the pool using her own strength and climbs out. Wang, however, fails to surface.
By the time Wang was pulled from the water and given CPR, she was unconscious, but still with a pulse. She was taken to a public hospital, then transferred to a private hospital, passing away afterward.
Wang’s husband, who rushed to Thailand upon hearing the news, blames the hotel for his wife’s death. Admitting his wife could not swim well and that she probably had too many things on her person when she jumped in, he stated that the hotel should have had a lifeguard on duty and that it took too long for staff to rescue her from the pool.
Organisers of the tour of which the young girl and Wang were a part of have said discussions for compensation will begin later. Officials in Wang’s home of Lishui, Nanjing, have said they plan to posthumously award Wang for her bravery.
This tragedy comes just 10 days after Nanjing’s China Pharmaceutical University student Deng Mengjia also drowned in the university pool. Deng had just finished a swimming test and was told to get out of the pool. Spokespeople for the university have said that other students had taken their attention away from her after they had told the student to leave the pool.
However, Weibo posts pointed fingers at the teachers demanding to know “how they could have let the student die in water that was only 1.4 meters deep”. It is said Deng was taken from the pool, given CPR and taken to the university hospital, where she later died on 17 June. Incredulously, a total of seven teachers and two lifeguards had been present at the time Deng drowned.
A study conducted by the University of Washington has revealed that drowning is the second-biggest killer of youths in China. While swimming instruction is becoming a popular extra curricular activity in Nanjing, naivety towards the dangers of water is still very prevalent among Chinese travellers.
