"Please! Let me save one more life! Please!"
On May 12 at 15:10, about 40 minutes after the earthquake struck, Jing Lijie, a 19 year old army firefighter, arrived at Wudu Elementary School with his coworkers. Over 100 students were buried under this collapsed school building alone.
Without any rescue equipment, they had to use bare hands to remove cement pieces and bricks. Progress was slow. After a day's work, only a dozen children were rescued, 30 were found dead. Jing was exhausted. The searching and digging had given him scratches and bruises all over. His fingers and feet were bleeding, so was his heart. For 20 hours he hadn't had any rest, nor had he sought medical attention for his wounds. The only thing on his mind was to save lives.
At 10 o'clock on the 13th, the shattered school building was on the verge of further collapse due to aftershocks and the work of lifting machines. All rescue personnel were ordered to evacuate from the rubble. As they left, he heard a boy's voice crying for help under the rubble. He immediately turned around, attempting to run for the voice. Firm clutches of his colleagues stopped him from moving. The huge concrete blocks fell down. The young rescue workers hopelessly watched the buildings collapsed to the ground, and heard the children crying and yelling for help stopped in a second. Hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion and helplessness, Jing knelt down, burst into a cry," Please! Let me save one more life! Please!" Everyone around him was in tears.
Later when situation became safer, Jing returned to the building and rescued a girl. The boy he heard also survived. In the heavy rain, the child was carried to the rescue tent by a soldier.
During the 60 hours of non-stop rescuing work, Jing and his colleagues found more than 300 people under collapsed buildings. About 50 of them were expected to survive.
Jing, a farmer's son who joined the army only 5 months ago, is a hero. And luckily, he is not alone.