A young woman sways on the edge of a slippery rock, loses her footing and falls into a river. Moments later it booms and then floats face down as a shocked viewer yells, “Hurry up, hurry up, save her!”
In a matter of seconds, a man throws off his shoes, leaps off a ledge, swims towards her, and lifts her head out of the water as he paddles her to the shore.
The man, Stephen Ellison, is the British Consul General in Chongqing, China, and he has been widely hailed as a hero on Chinese social media after the quick rescue video quickly spread on Saturday. The exuberant response to the diplomat’s actions contrasts sharply with the increasingly strained Beijing-London relations over Hong Kong’s national security law, the initial handling of the coronavirus, and a dispute over Chinese tech company Huawei’s access to 5G wireless infrastructure in Britain.
Ellison, 61, was visiting the ancient city of Zhongshan, about 75 miles south of Chongqing, on Saturday when he heard the crowd scream and saw a young woman fighting in the water, the British Embassy said in a post on social media with platform WeChat.
In the video, recorded by a viewer and later shared by the British Embassy in Beijing, Mr Ellison leaps off a ledge before swimming over to the woman who is swimming with her face in the water and barely moving. A woman can be heard in the background saying that the situation is “happy to have this foreigner”.
Another viewer tossed a lifesaver to Mr. Ellison, who grabbed him as he led the woman ashore. A handful of others on the bank then helped them out of the water.
“The situation was critical,” said the embassy in her post. It was found that the woman had lost consciousness, but due to the timely rescue “she soon regained her breathing and consciousness and everything was fine”.
The embassy added that when Mr. Ellison, who was called to his post this year, was back ashore, “he was well looked after by the villagers,” who poured him a hot cup of coffee and fresh clothes. A user of Weibo, a Chinese social media platform similar to Twitter, called Ellison an “English gentleman”. Another called him the “friend of the Chinese people”.
But while the praise for Mr. Ellison has come in, other commentators focused on the fact that no locals had jumped in to save the woman and that they had done little to help when she struck.
“So many people did not jump to save the girl, but waited for a foreigner to jump to save her?” one person wrote.
“It was outrageous,” wrote another. “Most of them were making videos and few rescued them and the first was a foreigner !!!”
Drowning is all too common in China, where many people cannot swim. In a 2018 article on the problem, Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party newspaper, complained that “Chinese culture pays little attention to learning to swim”. Drowning is the leading killer of children under the age of 14 in China, according to the World Health Organization.
There have been a number of incidents in China over the past few years where bystanders have ignored people in need, apparently – at least in part – because of the popular belief that interventions have the potential to leave a person liable for hospital costs or otherwise legally blamed.
Some instances, often those where a video of the tragedy went viral – like when a toddler was hit by a car and ignored in 2011, or when a man beat his wife to death on the street this month – have sparked waves of national soul – search.
In response to such incidents, China passed its first “Good Samaritan” law in March 2017, which provides legal protection for those who voluntarily offer emergency aid to others. The law was supposed to ease people’s reluctance to get involved, but some say attitudes have been slow to change.
Amy Chang Chien and Amy Qin contributed to the coverage.
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