"Miracle Girl" Had No Miracle to Begin With
The miracle-survivor girl, Xiang Wei Yi, from the 7•23 major railway traffic accident has touched the hearts of countless people. Little Yi Yi's words, "Mommy, where did you go? I thought you didn't want me anymore," bring tears to those who hear them. According to Captain Shao Yerong of the Wenzhou Special Police Force in charge of the rescue operation, he had received an order to lift the carriage and place it under the bridge for clearance. However, Shao Yerong insisted on clearing the site at its original location, which allowed Little Yi Yi to be rescued (as reported by Urban Express on July 26).
Little Yi Yi has been called the "miracle girl" by the public, but in the account given by Wenzhou Special Police Force Captain Shao Yerong, we don’t see any miracle. Let’s revisit the scene: around 4 p.m. on the second day of the accident (July 24), before the crane lifted up the damaged carriage 16 of train D3115, the rescue team conducted another search. Unlike previous searches, this one was more thorough and meticulous. As bodies were being carried out one by one, the rescuers suddenly noticed, "In a gap, no more than three or four centimeters wide, there was a little hand moving." That's how Little Yi Yi was saved.
From the process, the entire rescue operation could hardly be described as thrilling or high-tech; it was simply about lifting an air conditioner frame. In terms of time, during the Wenchuan earthquake, a certain training group of Chengdu Air Force successfully rescued Wang Youqun, who had been trapped for 196 hours, in Jiuchangou Village, Jiufeng Town, Longmenshan Town, Pengzhou City, Sichuan Province. Little Yi Yi had been trapped for less than 24 hours, which is less than one-eighth of the time Wang Youqun endured. Therefore, where does the miracle lie?
Of course, Little Yi Yi's rescue was full of coincidences. According to Shao Yerong, "I received the instruction in the afternoon to use a crane to lift the carriage and clear it under the bridge. I refused and insisted on clearing the site on the railroad tracks, that is, at the original location." Little Yi Yi's survival cannot be separated from the persistence of the special police officers, but is persistence a miracle? Isn't it just what rescue operations should entail? The command center must have carefully detected life signs with a life detector before ordering the lifting of the carriage. In a not-so-complicated situation, how could the life detector fail to detect Little Yi Yi's vital signs? Is this normal?
From this, we can see that there was no miracle behind the so-called "miracle girl." This actually conforms to common sense—there aren’t that many miracles in the world. What we often call a miracle is usually because our expectations are too low, so an obviously subpar result is mistaken for an excellent one and deemed a miracle. Isn't Little Yi Yi's rescue similar? During the Wenchuan earthquake, we shouted countless times, "Never give up, never abandon!" But here, it became a rare occurrence. Before even 24 hours had passed, without thorough collection efforts, the command center abandoned the search. We should thank the special police officers whose persistence saved a life, but such persistence should be common knowledge, an instinctive response. Why has it become so scarce?
I don't believe in so many miracles in this world; I believe more in some common-sense things. For example, in rescue operations, the emphasis by national leaders on "saving lives first" and our constant refrain of "never give up, never abandon" are all common sense. If we stick to doing these things, Little Yi Yi would definitely be saved, and there would be no talk of miracles.
Now, the State Council has formed an investigation team. We hope that the investigation team will thoroughly examine why the continuous search and rescue operation was abandoned. Although we wish for miracles, we do not recognize or need miracles caused by a lack of common sense. Perhaps what we should also do is to conceal from Little Yi Yi her near brush with abandonment.