Our reporter news Yesterday at noon, an old-style residence at No. 61 Hai Chao Road in Hangzhou suddenly caught fire. A 19-year-old girl sleeping inside was trapped, and the only escape route, the main gate, was sealed off by the flames. At a critical moment, four residents living nearby formed a human ladder and rescued the girl through a ventilation fan opening that was only 30 centimeters wide and long.
No. 61 on Hai Chao Road used to be the dormitory of Hangzhou Plastic Machinery Factory, and the house has a history of more than 30 years. When the reporter arrived at the scene yesterday at noon, the old house had been completely burned down, with the brick-tiled roof already burned through, and both rooms reduced to ashes.
At the time of the fire, there was still a girl trapped inside the room. Speaking of this, 70-year-old Grandpa Wang became very agitated, "Look, it's all thanks to these four men. By then, the main gate was no longer accessible, leaving only this final path for survival; they managed to drag the girl out from this opening."
The opening that Grandpa Wang pointed to was about 2 meters above the ground, square-shaped, approximately 30 centimeters in length and width, and looked like a ventilation fan opening.
Yesterday afternoon, the reporter finally found one of the four heroes mentioned by the residents - Yu Bingrong, who was the first to discover the trapped girl and rush to the scene.
Yesterday at noon, while waiting for the fire truck, at the exhaust fan port on the north wall, a faint cry for help caught Yu Bingrong's attention. "By then, quite a few people had gathered, and the scene was rather noisy. Suddenly, I heard someone shouting for help. Looking up at the wall opening, I saw a pair of hands reaching out and shaking continuously," Yu recalled.
Yu Bingrong shouted twice and rushed forward. By then, the door was already engulfed in flames, making it impossible to enter. The only way out was the opening in the wall. However, as the opening was over 2 meters high, Yu Bingrong could only stand on tiptoe to grab the girl’s hands.
Hearing the cries, resident Cao Zhigang also rushed over, grabbing one hand each with Yu Bingrong to pull her out. Soon, the girl's head emerged, followed by her upper body... At a critical moment, the girl's hips got stuck in the opening. As the fire grew fiercer, both Yu Bingrong and Cao Zhigang were struggling. That's when Li Wei Fa appeared and used all his strength to lift the 165-pound Yu Bingrong.
"Perhaps because I was too heavy, Old Li couldn't hold me up anymore, and I started sliding down. But the girl kept crying and shouting that her legs were being burned," said Yu Bingrong.
At this point, the slim Zhang Guanlin showed up. "He used his shoulder to lift me up into the air. Afterward, I was able to exert some force and, together with the others, we tilted the girl's body slightly, using the principle that the diagonal of a square is slightly longer, ultimately pulling the girl out."
After the girl was rescued, the section of the roof where she had been collapsed shortly afterward. "From discovery to rescue, it wouldn’t have exceeded 2 minutes. The girl was about 1 meter 6 tall and was still in her pajamas. She was quickly taken to the hospital by ambulance."
Reported by our staff reporter Li Yangyang