September 15, 2009
September 15, 2009
At 5:50 on the afternoon of September 13, a long-distance bus burst into flames on the Fochen Bridge on its way to Foshan, Guangdong. The driver and all 37 passengers escaped safely, but the bus continued to burn.
Then, it started to move. Lu Shaoyi (卢绍毅), a 29-year-old police officer dispatched to the scene, drove his patrol car straight at the bus and rammed it in an attempt to stop it from advancing into traffic at the foot of the bridge.
“It was like something from a movie,” said one witness. Although Lu wasn’t successful at stopping the bus, he did slow it down enough that it came to a rest without causing any injuries (apart from his own).
He has been hailed as a hero for his actions.
Below is a video of the burning bus; unfortunately the citizen journalist was more concerned with fleeing the path of the vehicle than capturing Lu’s attempt to head it off, so there’s no footage of the actual crash.
Today’s Yangtse Evening Post reprinted a Southern Daily interview with Lu:
SD: What did you see when you arrived on the scene?
Lu: From a distance I could see something on fire at the top of the bridge, a sea of flame sending thick smoke billowing skyward. There’s an intersection at the foot of the bridge where there were lots of cars and pedestrians, and some colleagues hurried to disperse them in the interest of safety.
SD: Why did you immediately think of using your patrol car to ram the bus?
Lu: I headed up the bridge in the wrong direction. The bus wasn’t slipping very noticeably, but when I got about 20 meters from it I could see that it had started picking up speed. I thought about the people and cars crossing at the end of the bridge, so I rammed it head-on in the hopes of cutting it off and stopping it.
SD: Did you think that it could be dangerous? It could have exploded.
Lu: It was an emergency, so there was no time to think. I never thought that it might explode, or whether or not I’d be able to stop ot.
SD: What happened after you rammed it?
Lu: There was a crunch, and the bus slowed down a little. Then I jumped out of the car. Because the bus was heavy, and because of the incline, it pushed my car about three or five meters into the next lane, and then started to pick up speed. I must have redirected it with my car, because after it left the bridge it veered right onto Nanhai Road and then ran into a flower bed a few hundred meters later before it stopped, still on fire.
SD: Were there any other police in the car? Did you know if you’d been hurt?
Lu: No, there was only me. When I saw the bus continue downward, I ran after it shouting “Get out of the way!” I was really afraid that the unthinkable would occur and it would run into people or cars. I didn’t know if I’d been hurt at the time. When I saw the bus stop without hitting anyone, I relaxed, and then felt a little dizzy.
SD: Someone said that the bus traveled one kilometer while on fire.
Lu: Absolutely. After I hit it, it slowed down a little, or else it would have gone even farther.
SD: Lots of people at the scene called you a hero. What do you say to that?
Lu: Just doing my job. (A superior officer standing next to him says, “That’s right.”)
According to today’s Southern Metropolis Daily, which uses the Cantonese term 阿SIR (for people in uniform) in its front-page headline, the local PSB is calling on all of the bureau’s police officers to learn from Lu’s work ethic.
- Southern Daily (Chinese): To stop a flaming public bus, patrolman rams it with his car
- Southern Metropolis Daily (Chinese): Officer who rammed fire bus decorated for merit
- Sohu video (Chinese): Police officer rams burning bus