A man in China who was saved by an elderly man who risked his life to stop people from driving into a collapsed road has driven 800km to thank him. In the early hours of May 1, an 18-metre-long section of motorway in a mountainous area of Guangdong, southern China, gave way, sending cars tumbling down a slope, leaving 48 people dead and 30 injured. Huang Jiandu, 64, was a passenger in a vehicle that passed the section of road just before it collapsed.
After seeing the huge hole appear behind his car, Huang stopped and got out. He reached the other side of the pit, hoping to stop the following vehicles from driving on, reported state media CCTV. Initially, Huang yelled at the oncoming traffic and asked drivers to stop, but he was ignored and cars dropped down into the abyss.
He then knelt down in the middle of the road, forcing a car to halt. Cai Xuanda, a man in his 20s, was in the second car that was stopped by Huang. He said he was about 20 metres away from the hole and driving at a speed of 100km/h before he slammed on the brakes.
After Cai’s parents heard of the accident, they wanted to visit Huang to thank him for saving their son, according to the report. “If Brother Huang had not got down on his knees, my son would not have stopped,” Cai’s father said. On May 9, Cai, his parents and his sister went to Huang’s home in Shenzhen, driving from their hometown in Zhangzhou, southeastern Fujian province, which took an entire day.
Cai’s mother told him to bow “in.