Octogenarian wins praise for saving 96-yr-old with CPR

Recently, an online video of an octogenarian giving first aid to save a senior citizen in his 90s won widespread praise among Hangzhou residents in East China's Zhejiang province.

The 96-year-old surnamed Pan, from Jiande city, governed by Hangzhou city, experienced sudden chest pain and shortness of breath on Sunday morning. He had suffered from high blood pressure and heart disease for years, and received heart stent surgery in January 2019. Then his grandson immediately drove him to the hospital.

Pan's condition became more serious, and there was a traffic jam on the road to the hospital. The grandson had to pull off the road and carry the senior man on his back as he ran. But in the process, Pan suddenly stopped breathing.

The grandson then immediately put down his grandfather to do chest compressions based on his own knowledge.

A silver-haired man happened to be passing by. "I saw that the way the young man was conducting CPR was somehow wrong, and it was unlikely to be useful," he later told the media.

Yu Shoudi, 83, then knelt down to observe the victim's vital signs and found that his breathing and carotid pulse had stopped. Then he made the judgment to perform not only cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR, but also artificial respiration. After four to five rounds, the man made a stable recovery.

Before retirement, Yu was a physician in a hospital in Jiande city. After retirement, he still provided consulting services to patients until he reached the age of 74. He had practiced medicine for 51 years in total.

While others have lauded him for setting a good example for society, he said he was just doing his job as a doctor.

"If you have the knowledge of first aid, you should give your help to those who are in critical situations. Then the result might be totally different." Yu said he hopes that more people can engage in such life-saving acts.