Huang Meihua sits in the cockpit during a training session at the Imperial Canadian Flying School. (Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
Huang Meihua is a 19-year-old girl from Southwest China's Sichuan province who will fly from the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu to Vancouver, Canada on Tuesday.
Huang will be alone during the 16-hour journey. She will spend the next four years as an international student at the University of British Columbia pursing a bachelor's degree.
Granted a full scholarship during her freshman year at UBC, Huang will mainly take courses in the humanities department and have science as her major during her sophomore year.
Huang is a double amputee who can only move with the help of a wheelchair, as her artificial legs do not suit her very well. She has overcome problems others cannot imagine to become a genuine success story.
A magnitude-8.0 earthquake whose epicenter was in Wenchuan county in Sichuan on May 12, 2008, killed 69,226 and left 17,923 missing.
The quake buried Huang in the rubble of her primary school in Beichuan county, Sichuan province, crushing the then 11-year-old's legs. She waited helplessly in a makeshift shed without medical care.
The roads were inaccessible so a military helicopter flew Huang to Chengdu where surgeons had to amputate her legs.
"How I wished I had wings to fly to safety," she said. "It is due to this experience that I have a special feeling for pilots and flying."
After her initial recovery, Huang studied in a makeshift primary school in Beichuan, earning the highest score in all of her subjects. A year after the earthquake, she started her sixth grade at the Guangya School. She was offered a free education by headmaster Qing Guangya until her graduation from its high school in 2016.
Guangya, the first private school in China, educates students who will pursue university studies in English-speaking countries. All subjects are taught in English.
