A woman who caught a toddler falling out of a tenth-story window in China more than a decade ago is melting hearts with their enduring relationship.
Wu Juping, 31 at the time of the incident, was drawn to a crowd of people staring up at an apartment block when she heard a woman shout, “Do not climb.”
She was quick to grasp the situation, and when the toddler started to fall, she instinctively dashed forward and caught her.
Highlights
- A two-year-old girl climbed out of the 10th-story window while her grandmother was babysitting
- The woman who caught the girl was knocked unconscious and broke her arm in three places.
- The girl is now 16 and celebrated her birthday with Juping who is also her godmother.
Despite a concussion, broken bones, and a six-month journey to full health, Juping lives up to the vow she made: “I will come to celebrate your birthday every year.”
Birthday celebrations paired with memories of how close she came to death
Image credits: The Paper
Footage of the two sitting together during the girls’ birthday celebration at the end of May has surfaced and spread throughout China and around the globe.
The rescued baby Zhang Fangyu, better known as Niu Niu, is now 16, and Juping plays the role of her endearing godmother.
Image credits: CCTV News
The clip shows the two side-by-side behind a birthday cake, surrounded by people clapping and singing.
The video then cuts to a computer-generated reenactment of the dramatic moment that brought the two together 14 years ago.
The two-year-old climbed out of a tenth-floor window
Image credits: CCTV News
On July 2, 2011, while Niu Niu was supposedly being watched by her grandmother in their tenth-floor apartment in China’s eastern province of Hangzhou, a bystander spotted a pair of feet sticking out of a window.
The feet slipped further out until the child’s entire body was visible.
The incident attracted a crowd of onlookers in the street below, who started shouting, “Child, don’t move.”
Image credits: CCTV News
Someone on a balcony of the floor below brought a ladder and tried to extend it across to the child who was at that point dangling from the window sill, but it was too short.
Baidu Baike, China’s archival news resource, reports a bystander saying, “I felt like my heart was hit hard, and I kept falling down with the little girl, my mouth opened wide, and my mind went blank.”
The child’s grip slipped, and she fell.
Juping shattered her arm and was knocked unconscious
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Juping, who had a seven-month-old son of her own, leaped forward and caught Niu Niu in her left arm, breaking the child’s fall but getting knocked out in the process.
The two lay still on the ground while blood trickled from the corner of the toddler’s mouth.
According to another onlooker, the little one broke the tense silence with an exclaimed “Wow” and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Image credits: CCTV News
A local math boffin noted that when Juping caught Niu Niu, she did not merely catch the weight of a two-year-old girl—which, according to the CDC, weighs anywhere from 22 and 33 lbs.
Applying physics to his idea, he claimed that the force the toddler struck Juping with was closer to 700 lbs.
An X-ray of the damaged limb showed her arm was broken in three places, and doctors decided that while she had a 95% chance of a full recovery, it would take all of six months.
Image credits: CCTV News
According to the Chinese information portal, the medical cost of the treatment was close to $7,000, but the hospital was happy to pay for it.
Juping was discharged from the medical facility on September 27 of the same year, although she had to return every two weeks for checkups. At that point, her arm had regained only 60 percent of its functionality.
The toddler snapped out of her coma after ten days, surprising everyone.
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Niu Niu’s injuries, with the exception of a bruised eye and a swollen upper lip, were all internal.
She arrived at the hospital with a swollen stomach and vomited blood three times. After surgery to repair her damaged intestines, she was considered “basically stable.”
Doctors then concluded that the now comatose girl had sustained damage to her brain and spine.
But she surprised everyone when she woke up ten days later and started calling for her parents.
Image credits: CCTV News
The attending specialists found her to be completely numb on the left side of her body but predicted a positive prognosis nonetheless.
Niu Niu was discharged after 73 days of treatment—just in time to spend the 2011 Mid-Autumn Festival with her parents at home.
Juping, who had earned herself the moniker “the most beautiful mother,” visited the toddler for the first time since their near-fatal meeting.
The rescuer vowed, “I will come to celebrate your birthday every year”
Image credits: The Paper
In the same year, Juping was honored with the People Who Moved China award and met with visitors from across the country who were touched by her sacrifice and wished to donate gifts.
But for 45-year-old Juping, her selfless act was more instinct than anything else.
“It happened in an instant. I didn’t have time to think. I just knew she was a child. I am a mother. Children are the apple of their mother’s eye. It is only natural for a mother to save her child!”
In 2013, as a nod to this bond, she was photographed playing with her biological son and Niu Niu on a set of swings.