Motorcyclist didn’t knock me down, 79-year-old man admits
Print Edition
An elderly man has admitted in a private chat that no one was to blame for the “accident” that caused a motorcyclist to kill himself after he was hounded for compensation, yesterday’s New Express Daily reported.
Zhou Huoqian, a 79-year-old resident of Dongyuan County in south China’s Guangdong Province, said Wu Weiqing hadn’t knocked him down on December 31. Instead, Wu had driven him to hospital, Zhou told Chen Guanyu, 74, a well-known figure in the southern city of Shenzhen, seven days after Wu’s suicide.
Zhou, who is in hospital being treated for thighbone injuries, said: “I don’t have the money to pay for my treatment. I hope he can give me some money,” according to a recording obtained by the newspaper.
Zhou remained silent when he was told about Wu’s suicide, Chen said. However, in a media interview the following day, January 10, Zhou insisted he had been knocked down, the newspaper said.
Wu’s daughter Wu Haiyan said an insider had told her Zhou would blame her father in public but admit in private conservations that he had fallen down himself.
On January 7, Dongyuan police said they had found no evidence that the motorcycle had struck Zhou. However, they didn’t rule out the possibility that the elderly man fell after being startled as Wu rode past.
According to an insider with police connections, an investigation into the case is ongoing because of Zhou’s contradictory statements.
Wu, 45, drowned himself in a pond on January 2. His family said he took his own life because he could neither bear the false accusations nor afford the 200,000 yuan (US$33,040) Zhou’s family had demanded in compensation.
“He felt there was an injustice but he had nowhere to turn,” Wu’s wife, surnamed Lan, told a local TV channel.
Lan said Wu had asked: “Was it wrong to be a Good Samaritan?”
Witness Zhou Yuqin told reporters he hadn’t seen any collision but had stopped Wu and asked him to help take the old man to hospital.
Wu paid nearly 4,000 yuan for medical fees, but his family said he faced demands for more compensation. As a garbage collector, Wu had a monthly income of only 700 yuan, Xinhua news agency reported.
Zhou Rihua, the elderly man’s son, said his father insisted Wu had caused the accident, but he denied having asked for compensation in a phone call to Wu on January 2.
Wu was well respected in his village and known as always being willing to help others. But in the last phone call he had with his friend Lan Xiaodong, Wu had urged him not to do good deeds anymore, Xinhua said.
Wu’s death reignited a debate on whether people should help someone in trouble because of the risk of false accusations and demands for compensation.
“If aiding others brings such results, who dare to help?” said one of Wu’s fellow villagers.
In the past few years there have been a number of cases across the country where people trying to help were instead wrongly accused of causing the accident.
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