Surprisingly, when more than ten reporters from the provincial capital arrived at the scene upon hearing the news, a person in charge of the restaurant "invited" the reporters into a private room under the guise of "introducing the situation." Soon after, the reporters were shocked to find that there were several "big men" guarding outside the private room. When the reporters inside the room tried to open the door, someone outside firmly held the door handle to prevent them from leaving.
In this way, reporters from multiple media outlets in the provincial capital, including our reporter, were "locked" in this private room for a full ten minutes.
Reporters' Experience - Interview Encountered "Being Locked"
Time: 10:40
Location: Outside the kitchen of Mengcheng Grand Restaurant
Event: The incident site "refused entry"
At around 10 o'clock yesterday morning, Yu Hong, a pastry chef at Mengcheng Grand Restaurant on Huaihe Road in Hefei, unfortunately had her right hand caught in the meat grinder while using it in the kitchen.
At around 10:40, after receiving a tip-off, the reporter rushed to Mengcheng Grand Restaurant at the east entrance of Huaihe Road Pedestrian Street. With the guidance of a cleaner in the hotel lobby, the reporter came to the third floor of the hotel.
The kitchen of the incident site was right next to the third-floor staircase. At this time, the kitchen door was tightly closed, and through the glass on the door, the figures of several firefighters could be seen faintly.
Just as our photojournalist identified himself and prepared to take pictures of the scene, he was pushed out by hotel staff.
Outside the kitchen door, reporters from several media outlets within the province were anxiously waiting for the results of the on-site rescue.
Time: 10:50
Location: Third Floor of Mengcheng Grand Restaurant
Event: Cooperating with the hotel's "waiting in the private room"
Around 10:50, Ms. Zhu, the head of the Front Office Department of Mengcheng Grand Restaurant, came to the third floor and asked the reporters to rest in a private room on the third floor to avoid affecting the rescue site and the hotel's business.
Many reporters explained to her that they were waiting outside the kitchen door to capture the first scene and assured her that their interviews would absolutely not affect the rescue work. But eventually, out of respect for the hotel, the reporters successively cooperated with Ms. Zhu's request and collectively entered the private room to wait for updates on the rescue of the girl.
Ms. Zhu, who walked into the private room with the reporters, began to introduce the accident to the reporters. According to her, the female pastry chef involved in the accident surnamed Yu and was newly hired by the hotel.
" Around 10 o'clock, Xiao Yu was using a special tool to put pork into the meat grinder to crush it. Perhaps because the pork was almost finished, Xiao Yu wanted to save time and directly held the last piece of meat with her hand to put it into the meat grinder, which unexpectedly caused the accident," Ms. Zhu described.
At this point, the reporters originally thought that the hotel side was very cooperative with the interview, and their concerns were slightly eased, deciding to quietly wait for the latest developments in the rescue reported by the hotel side.
Time: 11:20
Location: A Private Room Inside Mengcheng Grand Restaurant
Event: Multiple Strong Men "Locked Reporters"
During Ms. Zhu's conversation with the media reporters, some reporters went out to use the restroom and accidentally found that the door handle couldn't be pulled. It was then that the reporters realized that there were several people guarding outside their private room.
Upon discovering this situation, some media reporters immediately questioned Ms. Zhu, "How did you lock us in the room?" Ms. Zhu smiled and shook her head, saying, "No, no."
Around 11:20, multiple reporters heard noise outside the door and prepared to go out to check the situation on the scene. Unexpectedly, the door handle couldn't be pulled at all. Through the glass window on the door, there were clearly several physically strong men guarding outside, preventing the reporters from going out.
When the reporters saw through the windows that the injured pastry chef had been carried onto the ambulance, the "soft-confined" reporters felt "deceived."
One reporter attempted to pull open the door of the private room. Dramatically, several "big men" outside firmly grabbed the door handle outside and started to struggle with the reporters. Afterward, one reporter recalled that moment: "We just managed to pull the door open a little gap, but then it was pulled back by an even greater force, like 'tug-of-war.'"
Seeing that they couldn't get out, more reporters approached to negotiate.
To extricate themselves, one reporter shouted, "If you don't let us out, we will call 110."
The employees outside heard the reporters' shouts and slightly loosened their grip. But someone outside still provoked, "Go ahead and call 110!"
When the door was finally opened with difficulty, a stout chef again shouted at the reporters, "Go ahead and call 110!"
But at this moment, the reporters didn't have time to negotiate with the hotel side about the "being locked" incident and rushed downstairs to try to "catch up" with the first scene.
Witnesses Say - Narrator: Informant Xiao Ding
Witness Location: Incident Site
Meat Grinder "Bites" 21-Year-Old Girl
After much effort, the reporter found informant Xiao Ding, who recounted the scene he witnessed after the accident occurred.
It was learned that the 21-year-old female pastry chef Xiao Yu was trapped in the meat grinder.
At around 10:20, Xiao Ding discovered something wrong in the kitchen passage on the third floor of the hotel. "Almost the entire part of the girl's right arm below the elbow joint was caught in the meat grinder," Xiao Ding said. He only saw the girl bending over and groaning continuously. Two chefs who rushed to the scene supported the girl from front and back, trying to hold her body up, with the girl's head buried in one chef's arms. A nurse had already hung an IV drip for the girl, and firefighters also surrounded her.
Xiao Ding said that the meat grinder placed on a rack was about 1 meter off the ground, with a very hard steel shell and almost no detachable parts on the surface. At the tail of the meat grinder, they found some screws. However, after everyone unscrewed the screws and removed the cover, "we saw a large gear disk. After removing the gear disk, we found that the disassembly work became even more difficult," Xiao Ding explained. The main shaft inside the meat grinder was wrapped in a layer of hard steel plate, making it impossible for everyone to dismantle it smoothly while ensuring Xiao Yu's safety.
"The firefighters were very careful in dismantling the machine to avoid causing pain to Xiao Yu," but even so, Xiao Yu occasionally screamed in pain due to the pain.
Firefighters kept trying to cut open the machine using a small cutting machine. However, since the machine was extremely hard, the cutting progress was very slow.
Firefighters couldn't use a more powerful specialized cutting machine because doing so might cause excessive vibrations that could endanger Xiao Yu's life.
Around 11 o'clock, technical personnel from the meat grinder manufacturer arrived at the hotel scene. Unfortunately, the technicians stated that this model of the meat grinder was an old model from many years ago, and they were unclear about its internal structure.
Under these desperate circumstances, in order to save Xiao Yu's life, the firefighters decided to immediately transfer Xiao Yu and the meat grinder together to Anhui Provincial Hospital.
Four or five soldiers squatted down and lifted the iron frame under the meat grinder together. Another two people carried Xiao Yu.
To reduce Xiao Yu's pain, they walked very carefully. From the kitchen operation area to the elevator entrance, a distance of just over ten meters, took nearly ten minutes.
Narrator: Our Reporter
Witness Location: Anhui Provincial Hospital
Pastry Chef Eventually Loses Right Hand
Around 11:30, the girl along with the meat grinder was sent to Anhui Provincial Hospital.
Around 12:00, at the emergency room of Anhui Provincial Hospital, the reporter saw through the window that Xiao Yu was sitting on a stretcher bed, her right hand still tightly connected to the meat grinder. According to doctors, Xiao Yu's right hand could not be saved, and amputation was necessary. Outside the emergency room, Xiao Yu's colleagues and family members gathered, silently waiting and offering blessings.
At 12:50, Xiao Yu was taken into the operating room on the 9th floor.
At 13:00, the door of the operating room opened. The reporter saw that the bed pushed out by the nurse had scattered multiple iron parts, looking very sturdy. According to onlookers, these were the disassembled parts of the meat grinder. Afterwards, the reporter learned that since Xiao Yu's right hand could not be saved, the doctor administered anesthesia to her, and the firefighters used a specialized cutting machine to dismantle the meat grinder. Soon after, the door of the operating room closed again.
Not long after, the reporter learned that since Xiao Yu's right hand had been caught in the machine for too long, the doctor would perform an amputation surgery on her.
Mr. He, Xiao Yu's brother-in-law, who was waiting outside the operating room, said that he received a call from Xiao Yu's colleague around 11 o'clock and only then did he know about the incident. Currently, he has informed Xiao Yu's parents. He revealed that Xiao Yu is from Feixi County and had just started working as a pastry chef at the hotel about a week ago.
Various Opinions - Journalists Being "Locked" is an Infringement
Xiao Yu's Family:
Journalists interviewing is to understand the truth of the matter, and we need to learn the whole event through the journalists' reports.
Wu Dingbing, lawyer at Anhui Guoyun Law Firm:
The "journalists being locked" incident is actually an infringement on the journalists' right to report and personal rights. The right to report for journalists is protected by law. Even disregarding the professional identity, if a regular citizen is locked by the restaurant, the hotel still infringes on the personal rights of citizens.
Professor Shen Zhengfu from the Department of Journalism at Anhui Normal University:
In a democratic and rule-of-law society, the right to information is one of the basic human rights and is also the key to realizing all freedoms. And the media is the main channel for the public to obtain information, and the public's right to information is largely realized through the reporting rights of journalists.
Industry Insider:
The "journalists being locked" incident cannot be regarded as an isolated case; it must be reviewed from the perspective of safeguarding the public's right to know and the right to public opinion supervision. Otherwise, similar incidents like "journalists being locked" will not only fail to be effectively curbed but may even be emulated by more interview subjects or interest groups, posing a danger of the public's right to know being gradually eroded.