A university student in Hangzhou, Eastern China's Zhejiang
Province, has been given an award for donating blood to a pregnant
woman who was close to death.
Mao Chenbing, from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, has the rare
AB-blood type, which just one in 10,000 Chinese people have.
Last month, on a Saturday morning, Mao was chatting with friends
online when she got an on-screen message. It said that a Dong
minority woman in Guizhou Province was in desperate need of an
AB-blood transfusion.
The 29-year-old woman would die if she did not receive a blood
transfusion, the message said.
Mao comes from a small town in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. She
has only paid half her tuition fees this semester because of a lack
of funds. Even so she borrowed money from her classmates for the
journey.
She took a train to Shanghai and a flight to Guiyang, capital
city of Southwest China's Guizhou Province. Employees at Hongqiao
Airport heard of her story and rushed her through the airport.
She arrived in Guiyang Airport at 9:30 pm and met worried family
members of the pregnant woman in distress, Yang Changhua.
They arrived at the hospital in Liping County late at night the
following day after taking a 10-hour journey on bumpy roads.
Mao fainted after she gave 240 ml blood, as she was so exhausted
after two days' traveling.
On regaining consciousness she insisted on giving more blood,
but concerned doctors refused her offer.
"I felt ashamed when I saw Yang lying on her bed unconscious as
I could not help her more," Mao said in an interview with the
Oriental Morning Post.
Soon after Mao returned to school, without telling anyone of her
heroic deeds.
It wasn't until last Wednesday, when a deputy governor of Liping
County visited Mao's university that her sacrifices were revealed.
On the same day the university granted Mao an award for her
bravery.
Yang has fully recovered, but regrettably she had a
miscarriage.
(China Daily October 18, 2007)