My mother said that when the time comes to cremate, it will no longer be able to accompany my father, so I have to stay by the side.
Xiao Lu (a pseudonym) saw her father again on May 23 at 2 p.m. at the Ziling Mountain Mausoleum in Baiyin City, Gansu Province.
Ziling Mountain Mausoleum is located next to National Highway 109, ten minutes drive from downtown Baiyin. Late at night, the road immediately adjacent to the cemetery, there are constantly large vehicles driving by, raising a burst of sand and dust. The funeral hall in the cemetery, at this time parked 10 cross-country marathon accident victims of the body, including the father of the deer.
This year, 21-year-old deer is studying in college, after receiving news of her father’s accident, she rushed from school to Gansu. Fawn’s father was the head of a local running group in Guizhou before he died. Fawn told All Now, her father has always been a keen runner, about four or five years ago began to run marathons, often to participate in races around the country.
The accident happened on the way to the fourth Yellow River Shilin 100 km cross-country race. The event started at 9 a.m. on May 22, with 172 runners participating in the 100-kilometer cross-country race. According to the organizer’s rules, participants need to provide a certificate of completion of 50 kilometers and above within the past year. According to CCTV, around 13:00 that day, 100 km cross-country race high altitude section 20 km to 31 km by the sudden change of extreme weather, local hail, freezing rain, wind catastrophic weather, the participants appeared unwell, loss of temperature and other conditions, more part of the people lost.
Search and rescue ended at noon on the 23rd, and eventually, the accident caused a total of 21 participants killed.
“The wind is a little big”, May 22, 8:20, the domestic top runner Liang Jing in the last circle of friends before life mentioned.
Participate in this 100 km cross-country race runner Xue Shouqiang told all now, the day the start of the run, the wind has been very strong; almost to the checkpoint CP2, more began to rain. He felt his body became cold, his hands also began to disobey, even hiking poles can not hold steady. At this point, the thermal blanket could not help much, because the wind was too strong, and it would be scraped away soon after putting it on. Xue Shouqiang decided to give up forward, hiding in an abandoned hut. After waiting in which four hours, only with the rescue team back to the checkpoint CP2 evacuation – the car can only drive to CP2, after which the road has been unable to travel.
Xue Shouqiang described, because the wind is too strong, volunteers can not set up tents at the checkpoint, the body can not carry the runners can not rest in the tent as usual. And tied to the roadside plants used to point the way to the red ribbon has been blown away, not familiar with the route of rescue workers difficult to determine the route.
Around 12:00 noon that day, there were already participants in the race group posted a video asking for help. The deer is still not clear, his father was in which section of the mountain road, what he experienced before he died. What she could see was a video circulating on Jitterbug – a man who looked similar to her father, lying on the ground, foaming at the mouth. She also speculated that her father had answered his mother’s phone call the night of the accident, only by then, he could no longer make a sound.
On the night of May 23, Fawn and her relatives spent the night in front of the casket at the funeral home.
The following is Fawn’s account.
It was late on the 22nd to early on the 23rd, when a (organizer) staff member called my mother and said something had happened to the marathon. The person who answered the phone said they were searching and rescuing, and then said they were very busy, and I was not good enough to call again.
Then I called the Baiyin 110 command center, the operator also said still in search and rescue. After calling 110 several times, one of the better operators asked me for my name and told me that (my dad) had a high probability of not being there.
The news was only known to me at the time, and I was away at school, that I did not say (to family). 23 early morning, my dad running friends group of friends came over to ask me about the situation, because the (fainting) people on the video shake like my father, my family relatives look also feel quite similar.
But this is certainly not for my mom to see. I don’t want Mom to know, she will suddenly collapse if she knows, she also has heart disease and diabetes.
It was after 2:00 am when our family called and confirmed they were coming over. My mom and the others bought tickets for the 6:00 a.m. drive from our home county to Guiyang. The plane didn’t have a direct connection yet, so they had to transfer from Zhengzhou to get here. I was coming from school and couldn’t buy a direct flight, I had to transit to get there.
I arrived at the airport at three or four in the morning, waiting for the plane there is nothing to do but wait. When I read the news on the internet, I saw that very few people were speaking, so I kept posting things and tweeting @media, actually trying to get the media to come out (and care about this). By the time I got off the plane and got to the layover, I looked at my phone again and someone was already following this.
That’s when I was contacted by the media, but I didn’t want to reveal my real name, because I didn’t want to go back to school later and have to accept that kind of strange look.
In fact, I was very confused before I took the plane. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I arrived at Lanzhou airport, whether I was going to the scene of the accident or to the police station? I don’t even know.
It was about 10:00 am on May 23 when my mom and her family arrived at the airport for the transit. The organizing committee said someone would pick us up when we arrived in Lanzhou, but they didn’t say where we were going. My mom kept calling them and asking them about it, and then they said that there was no sign of life.
My mom just cried very broken down there, I myself was at another transit station at that time and got on the plane later, and I didn’t know what I could do, so I typed those things on my phone that I posted on Weibo later.
After we arrived in Lanzhou, they came to pick us up and said we would go to the hotel first, we said we would not go to the hotel, we wanted to see our family (dad) first. It was only after we strongly requested that they brought us to the funeral home. After 2pm, we arrived at the funeral home, there was no signal all the way, many people on the internet were questioning my identity, and I didn’t know what was going on, but later the Weibo staff came to contact me to authenticate.
When I arrived at this side (funeral home), my family was devastated as soon as I got out of the car. I helped them walk over and I saw my father’s remains.
My father was placed in a bag. They opened the bag and took my father out again. He didn’t have a blanket or a punching bag, just a short sleeve and shorts, with socks on his feet, which were quite high up, and shoes. My father’s posture, just holding his hands like this, was probably too cold.
Then they let the forensic doctor to check the body, the forensic doctor did the examination, about 3:00 pm, until now (3:00 am), we still do not know what the forensic identification results are, has not yet issued a report. During the examination, I could see that my father had injuries on his head that were bleeding, his hand was clenched because it was too cold, his arm was bruised and purple, and there were wounds. Behind the waist to the buttocks thighs, there was blood.
We didn’t know at all where my father was found in the end, so I got angry, why don’t you tell us these things – how was he found, when was he found, why did this happen to my father? And they said they gave blankets, but my father didn’t have a blanket either, he had a towel wrapped around his hands, and that towel was all he usually used for running, and my mother washed it for him. They said the wind was very strong, the blanket was very light and thin, so they may not know where it blew.
I also wonder if my father had an accident on that road without a supply point, which is why they didn’t tell us.
We are still waiting for them to give a statement, to make things clear, where my father had an accident, why and how it happened.
During the search and rescue process, my mother called, my father answered the phone, but could not make a sound. This is a very important point. This is to show that they do not search and rescue efforts, why it has been so long, something has happened during the day, all the way to 12:00 am, 1:00 am or so, my mother called, my father can still receive, he insisted on that time, but why has not waited for rescue?
I think the call should be answered by my father, not the rescuers scratch to. Because when I saw my father, his phone was bundled in his lap, and no one else noticed it. Inside the funeral home, my father’s cell phone kept ringing and his friends kept calling him. I noticed the sound and started to look for it, only to see that he had his phone tied to his leg, covered by a sock. Now I have the phone, but I can’t open it without the code.
My father is a very strong man who can grit his teeth and persevere. He is 52 years old and was previously the legal representative of a material company in Sandu County. Four or five years ago, he started running marathons. My father has always been in good health and would go swimming in the summer and tried winter swimming for two years. He also had all the muscles on his body. He also took care of his health and would soak his feet at night and go to bed at 10:00.
He goes running every day. He would get up at six in the morning, go for a run at 6:30, and run until about 8:30 before going home. There are small villages around our county, there are dirt roads and roads in the villages, he usually goes to those places to run. In the room, there are medals from his running competitions, about 20 of them, as well as certificates and other awards.
In the running group, he also teaches others to run, and does not charge money, so we run together. For example, on New Year’s Day, we would run together in the park across the New Year.
He often runs marathons and often says I’m going to run a marathon somewhere, just like we say we’re going out to play. He came back and went again, my mother is used to it. He has been to Guilin, Chongqing, and Guangzhou (race); he has run in the mountains and in the city, and my mother still has many photos of him being captured while running.
After each run, he would call my mom to say what the score was, good and bad.
On May 22, my mom was at home doing his laundry and thinking that (the event) was ending and he was coming home soon. In the hotel where he was staying, there was a big school bag of his with clothes, a mug I bought for him, and some of his favorite fruit that he brought from home.
I talked to my mom on the phone last week and my mom said that my dad was going to the competition. I said on the phone to tell him to be careful (and safe). I didn’t expect that to be the case. My mom has been crying today and said she had a fight with my dad two days ago and then made up the next day.
He’s just a guy who likes to run. He came running and then ran into something like this and he was gone.
I have seen other families of the victims here, we all cried very broken, we are also quite difficult, I watched others cry, also follow the crying. After all, they were killed together, and probably all experienced being cold and frozen together.
(After arriving here) as soon as my mother cried, my sister-in-law followed, and my aunt also cried as soon as she got off the bus, so I had to shoulder the responsibility alone. I couldn’t let the three older ones do it, they couldn’t control their emotions anymore, so I had to do all the dealing with the staff. When you have a dependency, you can not do that; when there is no dependency, you have to calm down to think, for example, like (in the microblogging) posting things, there will be people bashing me, saying this and that.
In fact, our demand is very simple, just want to know the real situation. The organizing committee also took care of our food and accommodation, but what we want is an explanation.
The weather here is really strange, we came in the afternoon when the sun is still out, not much time, there is a cool wind blowing over, to six or seven o’clock in the evening, the air is very cold.
In fact, I have not slept since I received a phone call from my mother at 1 a.m. yesterday, and I have no intention of sleeping. I didn’t even close my eyes after that until now. Now that my family is asleep, I’m watching alone. Tonight, my father is in the freezer, my mother is lying next to her sleeping, and other relatives are in the other room.
My mom said that when the time comes for cremation, she won’t be able to be with my dad anymore, so she has to be with him all the time.
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