For One Boy, Survival Means Loss
DEYANG, China, May 18, 2008— -- Zhang Jianzhi might be counted among the lucky ones -- the 11-year-old boy survived when his school collapsed in the massive earthquake Monday, but his parents fear he now faces a lifetime of misery.
Zhang's family keeps a vigil in Deyang People's Hospital at the bedside of the slight boy with saucer-shaped eyes and a sweet disposition. He lies in his bed, alert but expressionless, as if in shock. He has lost both his arms.
The boy's story is echoed in countless other stories of loss throughout the quake zone, an area the size of the state of Virginia. Loss comes in many forms.
"I told the doctor, please save just one of my arms," the boy says quietly. "But they said, sorry, it's too late."
When Zhang's middle school in Shifeng began to collapse, he tried to run away, but he was crushed by a falling stairwell.
"I saw a hole and crawled out," he says.
Both his arms were bleeding and broken when his father found him outside the school.
"We live far from here," Zhang's father Zhang Qingyou says. "First, I rushed him to the county level hospital. But that hospital also collapsed. So we went to another hospital. There was no vehicle to take him, so I had to take him to the hospital in my motorcycle. He was bleeding all the time. You could see his flesh."
It was 20 hours before doctors were finally able to see Zhang. By that time amputation was the only option, they said.
For the Zhangs, accepting that their only son now has a permanent disability is a heartbreaking reality.
Like little Jianzhi, Lin Yiping, his mother, says she feels his fate would be different if he had the use of at least one arm.
Uninformed about prosthetic limbs and, regardless, unable to afford them, Jianzhi's parents have a hard time seeing any future in which their son will not be completely dependent.
Having at least one arm could have made a big difference in his life and the life of his family, Lin says.
"That way he could at least feed himself," the boy's mother says through tears. "I can do it for him now, but what happens when I get old? Who will take care of him? I worry about his survival."
