A shocking video that captured the moment a toddler fell from a moving minivan onto a busy road led many people in China and around the world to slam the child's relatives. After the clip went viral, his family's poverty was revealed to the public, and many people offered to help them, including donating a child safety seat and a new car. Child travel safety is still a major issue in China, with child traffic accident mortality rates remaining high.
Yang Defu, a migrant worker, never imagined he would be famous.
Last week, a 30-second dash cam video went viral on Chinese social media. In the video, the rear door of a minivan suddenly opens when the vehicle accelerates and a child falls out.
Amazingly, the toddler was not injured, thanks to the thick padded coat and trousers he was wearing. He quickly gets up and tries to chase the minivan, which drives away.
Yang was the minivan's driver and the kid is his 2-year old grandson. The accident occurred on the morning of February 27 on a busy street in Wujiang district, Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province.
Luckily, the driver of the car behind spotted the boy immediately and stopped his car. A passenger got out and carried the crying kid into their car, attempting to catch up with the minivan.
They gave Yang his grandson at the next crossing about 100 meters away, after the 52-year-old pulled over when other drivers shouted at him.
Two days later, a colleague of the driver of the car that picked up Yang's grandson posted the dash cam video of the incident online along with text explaining the story. The clip quickly went viral.
Scores of media outlets reported it, with television stations including China Central Television (CCTV) broadcasting the whole episode, showing the dash cam video, traffic surveillance video and an interview with Yang.
"I'm afraid people across the country possibly know me now. It is not a good reputation to have. I feel ashamed of myself," Yang told the Global Times on Tuesday via telephone.
There has been widespread criticism of Yang's irresponsibility and ignorance. The hashtag "Your kid has fallen" on Weibo has drawn 240 million views and 68,000 comments.
Yang makes no attempt to justify his carelessness. "The criticisms are right. I accept them," said Yang, who spent just five years in school.
Hailing from a village in Gushi county, a designated national-level poverty-stricken county in Central China's Henan Province, Yang said he moved to Suzhou with his wife and son in 2011 and sells vegetables. In 2013, his son got married and had a son in March 2014, who is now the darling of the whole family and largely cared for by Yang and his wife.
Many Chinese children are taken care of by their grandparents as their parents are busy working.
"He is very clingy," Yang said, adding that he had taken his grandson out in his minivan alone several times before and put him in the front passenger seat.
Yang says that he didn't know it was unsafe until the accident. The boy climbed into the back of the minivan and fell out when the rear door suddenly opened.
The video also went viral outside China. On youtube.com, the clip has attracted more than 205,000 views, with some saying that Yang should be arrested.
"I didn't know sitting in the front passenger seat is dangerous for children. I had never heard of child safety seats before," Yang said.
