A three-year-old boy fell onto the tracks at a railway station in China. The boy was reportedly posing in front of the tracks while his mother took pictures of him. The family was on their way home to celebrate the Lunar New Year holidays. According to witnesses, the boy lost his balance and fell into a small gap between a stationary high-speed train and the platform he was standing on. The mother apparently asked the boy to step back a little while she was taking his photograph.
People who witness the child fall at the Wuchang Railway Station in Wuhan, Hubei province, immediately called for help. Two station workers, who were guiding passengers onto the train, responded and one of them climbed down the small gap of the bullet train to get the distressed young boy. The employee, a 50-year-old man named Guan Yuyu, finally managed to get to the boy. Guan then lifted the boy up to the platform where his visibly distressed mother and a number of other workers were waiting.
The boy was clearly shaken by the ordeal but was otherwise unhurt despite falling more than a meter onto the tracks. Staff quickly checked for injuries and even considered taking the boy to the hospital. After a thorough check, the boy was given back to his mother and both of them were allowed to continue on their journey. Thanks to the quick thinking of the employees on the train station, the situation was quickly resolved. The train itself was also not delayed, which was a relief to the thousands of people waiting to get home.
The Lunar New Year holiday is one of China's biggest holidays. It is also the day when hundreds of millions of people from different parts of China travel to their native provinces and hometowns. Train stations and public transport are typically packed with people, placing a huge strain on the country's transport system.
Over the holidays, billions of people travel hundreds of miles, making it the largest human migration in the world. People working in the city and other migrant workers travel by land, sea, and air over the month-long holiday season to get to their hometowns. The sheer size of the people traveling all at once has resulted in a number of accidents and injuries. In 2017, there were reportedly around 898 incidents that involved people getting killed on train tracks. Most of these incidents occur when people illegally cross the tracks at non-designated crossing areas.
