0:00 In China, can you help an elderly person who falls? This baffling and heartbreaking question has once again been raised for the Chinese people. On February 20th, the news spread across mainland China about two middle school girls who helped an elderly woman after she fell, only to be sued 220,000 yen. The internet exploded. It all started on the afternoon of March 15th, 2025 in a quiet intersection of Donghai Town, Putin City. Two 14-year-old middle school girls were riding electric bikes. They saw an elderly woman on a bicycle lose her balance while turning and fall hard to the ground. Even though in China, helping a fallen elderly person carries immeasurable risks, the two kind-hearted girls didn't hesitate. They quietly said to each other, "Let's help
0:46 her. It's fine." They rushed over and carefully helped the woman up. They thought they had done something to be proud of. And as they left, their hearts were warm with the joy of helping someone in need. But little did they know that this kind act would mark the beginning of a nightmare for their families. The elderly woman named Ju Yu Hong not only failed to thank them, but insisted that she had fallen because the two girls on their electric bikes had scared her. She stopped the girls right there and demanded that they take full responsibility for the accident. After a heated argument, the situation was reported to the police. The girls and their families thought the truth would come out quickly once the police got involved. But to their shock, the police determined that the girls were at fault, assigning them secondary responsibility. The decision, especially in the face of
1:32 clear surveillance footage, was particularly shocking. The footage showed that when the elderly woman fell, it was because she swerved to avoid hitting a white car, losing control and falling. The two girls had just passed the intersection and had no physical contact with her, nor were they even close to her. Simply put, the direct of the fall was the elderly woman's improper maneuver to avoid the car and had nothing to do with the girls. But even with the undeniable evidence, the police still assigned them secondary responsibility, citing the fact that the girls were under 16 and riding their electric bikes improperly, which indirectly contributed to the incident. What made the family even more upset was that this responsibility finding became the basis for the elderly woman's massive lawsuit. She took the two girls and their legal guardians to court,
2:19 demanding compensation for medical costs, nutrition fees, nursing fees, disability compensation, mental distress compensation, and more, totaling over 220,000 yen in addition to court fees. That's over $30,000. The court has officially issued a summon, and the case is scheduled to be heard at 9:00 a.m. on February 26th, 2026. The mother of one of the girls, Miss Jung, is just an ordinary worker and she feels helpless in the face of this massive claim. Miss Jung said, "We simply can't afford to pay. My child just did a good deed. So why has she become the defendant?" Since this incident, my child has completely changed. The lively, cheerful girl she once was is now depressed, afraid to leave the house, unwilling to go to
3:05 school, and even starting to doubt herself. She doesn't understand why the lessons we learn from textbooks doesn't seem to apply in real life. At the age of 14 or 15, children should be living in a protective bubble, believing in the goodness of the world. But this unjust disaster has left an indelible psychological scar on them. The doubt about good intentions will likely stay with them for a long time. What's even more infuriating is that the amount being claimed is completely unreasonable. Public information shows that the elderly woman was hospitalized for only 12 days and her medical expenses amounted to just 26,000 yen. Yet, she's demanding more than 200,000 yen in compensation. A large portion of this amount includes disability compensation and mental distress damages. According to the police, a secondary responsibility determination,
3:51 the two families are expected to pay around 60,000 yen in compensation, which is still an unbearable amount for an ordinary working family. And this is for something they didn't even cause. The families of the girls have made it clear that they will not accept this ruling and will persist in clearing their children's names. They firmly believe that the surveillance footage is the strongest evidence, proving that the girls acted out of kindness and were not responsible for the accident. They argue that the police's determination lacks a reasonable basis and the elderly woman's claim is nothing but a false accusation. The family's concerns echo the sentiments of countless nizens. if anyone should be held responsible. Shouldn't it be the white car that caused the elderly woman to swerve? Why is the blame being placed on the kind-hearted girls to try to help? After
4:38 the incident was exposed, it quickly caused a huge stir online with nearly all netisonens supporting the two girls. However, government-backed websites have been publishing a lot of articles stating that the issue of whether or not to help a fallen person should be avoided and responsibility should be determined solely by the police's findings. Some so-called practicing lawyers have also stepped in playing the role of rational, objective, and neutral. They advise the public not to be misled by public opinion. There's this news story blowing up again. An elderly person riding a bike falls. Two students kindly stop to help and then they get hit with a 220,000 UN compensation claim. From a lawyer's perspective, this case isn't really about should you help or not. At its
5:24 core, this is a no contact traffic accident. The first key issue is why didn't the traffic police determine that these junior high school students bore secondary responsibility? There are a few reasons under national traffic laws. First, minors under 16 are not allowed to ride electric bikes. Second, electric bikes aren't permitted to carry passengers over 12 years old. Third, when riding, you have to stay to the right, and when turning, you must yield to straight through traffic. If the students in the video were violating any of these, like riding illegally or not yielding properly, then yes, they did have some fault, but their fault was relatively minor. The main reason for the accident was that the elderly rider didn't steady themselves at that speed. Under normal circumstances, an average person could have easily avoided it and wouldn't have fallen. The elderly rider handled the situation improperly, so
6:11 their fault was greater. That's why the traffic police assigned secondary responsibility to the students. The second key issue is why is the elderly person claiming 220,000 UN? From what I've seen, the claim includes a little over 20,000 UN in medical expenses with the rest being various disability compensation and mental distress damages. But just because they're claiming 220,000 doesn't mean the court will award it. The actual amount depends on the plaintiff's real losses, the degree of disability, and crucially, the proportion of fault on each side. In the end, he stated that the court would fairly determine responsibility based on the facts, and if the elderly woman's disability wasn't serious, the students compensation should not be too high. After he posted the video, the comment section was flooded with angry comments. Here's what some netizens had
6:57 to say. Early in the morning, I saw a bunch of lawyers riding the wave of traffic. How could someone fall off a cheap bicycle? What's the difference between this and someone pretending to fall on the street? If you can't keep your feet on the ground, why are you riding a bike? The students were already passing by when she fell. How is that their fault? So, do these so-called lawyers really know the law? The elderly woman fell while avoiding a white car, and they said the students secondary responsibility is correct. What kind of law do they study? It's more about learning how to flatter and play politics. Another user commented, "What do you mean don't be guided by public opinion? A simple incident of helping someone ends up in court and legal procedures. Do you think it's a small issue for ordinary people? If the child develops depression or goes to extremes, should the police and the elderly woman
7:44 bear any responsibility? How can whether or not to help have anything to do with this? If the driver of the car had stopped to help, do you think the 220,000 yen would have landed on the driver's head? And they'd likely have to pay a lot. One more user said, "We should file a lawsuit against all the lawyers who posted these videos. They've distorted our understanding and conscience." Finally, a conscientious lawyer analyzed the surveillance footage and confirmed that the police's determination was completely wrong. >> Let's slow down frame by frame and take a closer look. First, the elderly woman is coming from the lower left corner of the screen heading towards the upper right corner. You can see a red line marking her path. Now, pay attention. Why is she traveling from the lower left to the upper right? It's because she's
8:30 trying to avoid the white car, but notice there's a step on the right side. As we continue, when the elderly woman reaches this point, she needs to avoid the step on the right. This is when her bicycle's handlebars makes a turn. So, at this moment, she's already making a turning movement, not to avoid the middle school student on the bike. Let's keep going frame by frame. By now, her movements are very slow and the middle school student only appears on the right side of the screen. At this point, the elderly woman's speed is almost zero. So, why does she fall? If we carefully look at the slow motion video, we can see that even though her speed is nearly zero, her left foot doesn't make any effort to touch the ground, which caused her to fall. The lawyer stated that the conclusion is clear. The elderly woman's fall had no connection to the presence
9:17 of the middle school students. While some people argue that the students weren't wearing helmets, that they shouldn't have ridden the bikes, or that they were riding too fast, none of these factors caused the accident. There's no causal relationship. Lawyer Pawn emphasized that despite the police's determination, according to the civil procedure law, the traffic accident report is a traffic litigation document that is typically used as a reference for judgment, but is not the final determinant. If there is other sufficient evidence showing that the two girls had no involvement in the accident, the court should not hold the defendants legally responsible for the elderly woman's fall. The lawyer received strong support from netizens. One user suggested investigating the relationship between the fallen elderly woman and the police officers. Under the intense pressure of public opinion, the
10:03 woman quietly withdrew the lawsuit. On February 21st, a reporter from the Hunan's Funian News contacted the mother of one of the girls. Miss Jung confirmed that the matter had been properly resolved and the plaintiff had withdrawn the case. The related content previously posted on platforms like Doian and WeChat had been deleted and she no longer wished to take up public resources. Netzens remarked there's no law in communist China. The root cause of all this is the collapse of the moral and legal systems. If this incident hadn't gone viral, the two students would have likely been sentenced to punishment. It was the power of the people that helped these two students. Many nizens agreed, posting videos to expose the injustice and reveal that communist Chinese police don't understand the law, or worse, they break it themselves. One vlogger said in a
10:49 video, "This video is so frustrating." >> In the footage, a woman occupies a parking space during the evening rush hour. The male driver asks her, >> "You're taking the parking space with your body. Don't you understand what first come, first serve means? Look how badly this car is blocking. You're just making it worse." The woman responds, "I'm not giving up the spot." After 10 minutes of the male driver trying to talk to her, the woman calls the police. The driver thought the problem would be solved once the police arrived. But once they got there, the first thing they said was, >> "No one can park when someone's in the car spot." >> The male driver, furious, argues with the police. >> "Public parking spaces are only for vehicles. What's she doing is definitely illegal." >> The police officer surprisingly asks, >> "How is it illegal?" The driver replies,
11:34 "This is disturbing public order." >> The vlogger expressed frustration, saying that basic civility dictates that the one who arrives first gets the parking spot, not the one who arrives first to stand in the spot. First come, first served, he argues. But the police didn't even understand this, claiming that standing in a parking spot isn't illegal. He added that while occupying a parking spot with one's body may not directly constitute a violation, it could still cause public disorder, which would make it a violation. The vlogger then posts another video where someone says, >> "A beautiful woman fell and got stuck inside and no one dared to help. People are so cold-hearted nowadays, probably afraid of being scammed. Older people sometimes might be confused and trick others, but a young person surely won't do that." All right, bro. Help me get my phone and record this. I'm going to help
12:21 her just in case. Big brother, please record it, too. I want to do a good deed. >> The blogger then questioned, "What's happened to society?" The real issue is the coldness of people's hearts. When they went to help, they thought it was over, but it could just be the beginning. It could be the start of trouble. One Edison pointed out that this all traces back to the infamous Pong Yu case, whose lingering effects are still felt today. The case refers to an incident in October 2006 when 64year-old Shu Xaolan from Nanjing fell while getting off a bus. A 24year-old man named Pong Yu kindly helped her up, took her to the hospital, and even paid 200 yen in medical fees. However, she later sued Pong Yu in court, and the judge shocked everyone by saying, "If you didn't hit her, why did you help her?" As a result, Pong was ordered to
13:09 pay Shu Shaolan 60,000 yen. The incident led to a great deal of social backlash. Pong Yu and the involved court staff disappeared and Shu Xolan, unable to bear the public scorn, moved away. She died in 2010 and her son was dismissed from his post due to misconduct. The judge was also suspended. Many believed that this case set back China's moral progress by at least 50 years. Another vlogger posted a video showing an elderly person lying on the ground trembling with countless people walking by without offering any help. The blogger asked, "If you saw an elderly person fall in the streets, would you dare to help them?" Nowadays, everyone has a phone in their hand. They're filming, but not one person dares to help. But we all get old, and when we're out alone, we can't guarantee that we
13:54 can get back up if we fall. How hopeless would we feel if when we fall, we see a crowd of people filming, but no one offering to help. It's not that people don't want to help, but they simply can't afford to. Helping could cost you everything. Even if you prove you were wrongly accused, all you get is, "And I'm sorry. It's not that there are no good people left in China, but the risk of helping is just too high." She suggested, "If we just caught one of the fraudsters, no matter their age, if they can take care of themselves, they should be sent to jail. We should take their pension, their house, and other assets for compensation, including punishing their children. If we do this to a few, nobody would dare to cheat others again." A netisonen agreed, saying, "This vlogger has seen the truth. The root of all this today, China encourages evil and suppresses goodness. The reason
14:41 is that the ruling authorities in China are the most evil mafia-like regime. They don't want the people to be good. For over 20 years, they've been persecuting the kindest people in China. The reason they do this is that if everyone becomes sincere and good, it exposes their own hypocrisy and ugliness. So, while the vloggers suggestions make sense, they can't be implemented in China unless the Chinese Communist Party disappears one day.
