A good Samaritan who approached a 70-year-old man and helped him after he fell in the street in the Pudong New Area was found yesterday with the help of netizens after online posts asking witnesses to provide clues to his identity.
The good Samaritan surnamed Jiang, 28, lives at the Shangnan No. 7 residential complex, Pudong police announced on their Weibo account yesterday night.
When he was helping the man who fell, a crowd gathered and some tried to dissuade him from intervening directly to avoid getting into trouble.
"We will express gratitude for his good deeds," said the old man's son, surnamed Gao, who had asked those who witnessed the incident to provide information.
Many people on the Internet praised the man's deeds.
"Let's make a relay and help find the good Samaritan!" a person identified as hankesheng said.
The incident happened on Friday afternoon when the senior citizen, who has epilepsy, fell on Hongshan Road and began frothing at the mouth, China Central Television reported.
Many gathering around him but no one touched him, a witness surnamed Liu said.
The video provided by one witness showed some onlookers were busy taking pictures or videos, some were commenting that seniors should not come out alone, and some were watching the scene. Some people called an ambulance.
Jiang walked by and stopped at that moment. When he got close to the man, onlookers tried to persuade him to stay away.
"He may blackmail you by claiming you pushed him down!" one said.
Jiang responded angrily, telling them the man "will die" if they didn't act. "Where is your conscience?" he yelled at the crowd.
Jiang turned the man over gently to lessen the danger of suffocation and supported the senior's head with his hands. He also checked whether the man had any medicine for emergency use with him.
When the ambulance arrived after 10 minutes, Jiang left.
The man's son said an attack such as he suffered "is terrible, as my father could die from suffocation."
There has been a lot of coverage in China about good Samaritans sued by people they helped.
Earlier this month, when an 87-year-old man lay along a downtown street, having fallen and bleeding from the head, people called an ambulance but were reluctant to touch the man - in part because they feared amateur first-aid might make him worse.
Also in August, a fishmonger who had helped an elderly woman in Xiangtan City of Hunan Province committed suicide by drinking a bottle of pesticide after the woman accused him of knocking her down and repeatedly asked him for over 200,000 yuan (US$31,446) in compensation.
Such incidents have stirred heated discussion on how the public should help those in distress.
