An employee at a hydropower station in Sichuan province who had been missing for 17 days following a magnitude-6.8 earthquake on September 5, was discovered alive on Wednesday.
The 28-year-old Gan Yu is receiving care at the West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, the provincial capital.
He was in stable condition, according to the hospital. He had multiple soft tissue contusions, rib and leg fractures, a serious infection, and other injuries, according to a preliminary diagnosis.
Gan was taken to the hospital at about 9 pm Wednesday, after being rescued that morning.
His rescuer, Ni Taigao, a villager in Wanggangping township, Shimian county, which is near to Luding county, the epicenter of the earthquake, had been searching for Gan on a mountain and heard him yelling for help, said Shen Xiaobing, head of the township government.
Ni rented another home farther down the mountain after the earthquake damaged his.
On Monday, Ni went back home to feed his sheep when he noticed rescue personnel passing Gan’s damaged home.
Ni made the decision to stay at a relative’s house in the village and search for Gan because he was familiar with the mountain.
Wednesday around seven in the morning, Ni left with two bottles of drinks and chocolates.
After more than two hours of traveling, he heard a call for aid on a mountainside and discovered Gan laying in the forest.
Gan had wounds on his legs and his clothes were in shambles.
Ni used her telephone to make a local government call while giving Gan one of the drinks to sip gently.
Ni said that Gan’s mental state was sound; he cried and expressed gratitude for someone showing up.
Gan claimed that he had survived by consuming wild fruits and water.
Wednesday at 11:30 a.m., Wanggangping Township dispatched 18 rescue personnel along with two medical personnel to the area where Gan was discovered.
He was transported by helicopter to the Luding county hospital before being moved to the Sichuan University West China Hospital.
The location where Gan was discovered was high in the mountain, extremely cold at night, and a difficult place for people to exist, according to Huang Junhua, a doctor at the Luding county hospital.
More than 10 kilometers separate the location from Gan’s place of employment, the Wandong Hydropower Station.
The road is hilly and there are multiple peaks on the way, Shen remarked. The station is in Wandong, a village in Luding county.
Luo Yong, a colleague of Gan’s, was relieved to learn that he had been saved and eager to meet him.
When news of Gan’s rescue reached his family in Dazhu county, Sichuan, they were overjoyed.
Liao Daishu, his 70-year-old grandmother, claimed that Gan’s disappearance caused her to lose weight and make her unable to sleep.
Gan and Luo made the decision to remain at their stations at the hydropower facility when the earthquake hit Luding, protecting nearby communities from flooding.
On Sept 7, the two men walked about 20 or 30 km away from the station. But Gan became too weak to walk further and decided to stay where he was to wait for rescuers. Luo continued walking. On the morning of Sept 8, Luo was found by the crew of a helicopter who had been drawn to the site by the smoke of a fire he lit.
Luo and the helicopter crew later looked for Gan, but were unable to find him.
Ninety-three people were killed by the earthquake.
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