Dai Guohong diving into a swimming pool / Photo courtesy of Dai Guohong
At 2:28 p.m., a magnitude-8 earthquake devastated much of Sichuan Province, reducing entire towns to rubble, and eventually killing some 80,000 people. Beichuan was one of the hardest hit areas.
Guohong's school building collapsed as disaster struck. His legs fell into a crack in the floor. The crack then closed, cutting into his flesh.
"There were aftershocks," Guohong recalls. "So the floor squeezed tighter and tighter. I fainted from the pain. And the next aftershock, another pain would wake me. I fainted, woke, fainted, woke… I wished for the aftershocks to come stronger. I wanted to be dead."
Guohong was stuck under the rubble for two days and two nights until rescue workers finally dug him out and rushed him to the hospital. Doctors called his parents to a separate room and offered them two options: either Guohong would lose his legs or he would lose his life. His parents signed the agreement for amputation surgery.
Anger, despair, self-pity. Guohong struggled to make sense of his loss. But to the surprise of perhaps even himself, he started a second life, in water.
Doctors suggested that he learn to swim to help with recovery. So less than one year after his amputation, Guohong took his first dip.
"My head sank," he recalls. "My stump, arms and body shook hard. I couldn't find my balance. I sank and sank. The water choked me. I thought I was going to drown."
