Trapped In Car, Woman Drowns As Husband Watches

by Fauna on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 110 comments

A woman drowned, trapped alone in her car, after she accidentally reversed off a ferry and fell into Shanghai’s Huangpu River on January 30th. Her husband and 18-year-old son were not in the car at the time and were forced to watch from the boat as workers and bystanders stopped them from jumping into the water.

Video also on Tudou.

black-passat-sinking-in-water

shanghai-woman-drowns-rescue-salvage-boats

shanghai-woman-drowns-salvaged-black-passat

Here are some news reports on Eastday and SMG (both Chinese).

Many Chinese netizens wondered why the news report did not mention the police/rescue boat that was clearly next to the sinking car, as seen in the video, but apparently did not do anything.

Comments from KDS:

zjzy1314:

Why not go to the back and open the door?
The back had not been submerged, it could have been opened.
The driver was scared stiff thus stuck inside waiting to die.

gali_429:

The boat next to it, what the heck is it doing…

ozawa:

Isn’t there a boat next to it

hanguowang:

Wasn’t the marine police boat just right there? Why didn’t they use a rope to stall it?

byron_r:

The rescue effort was a complete mess.

hide217:

What the hell were the marine police doing??? So close, my god!

tfwuliwuzuo;

CN! Are the people on the boat to the right watching a show!? Her husband is also an idiot. In this kind of situation, even if there were a hundred people holding me, I would at least have struggled a little. Just standing there watching, he was too calm.

benty:

Not a single rescue effort, such a failure.
Look at when the American plane crash landed in the river and how fast the rescue was.

zjzy1314:

Exactly, if was in Harmonious Country [China], the plane would eventually sink and everyone would drown.

CameronDoo:

I have smashed the window of a VW Santana with my bare hands before.
In this kind of situation, with it being one’s own wife, one should have even more adrenaline…

carl_1127:

On television, they said the pier workers were holding back the father and son, and the boat in the video should be the rescuers. However, they did not go rescue because they were afraid of their own danger, because when a 1.4 ton car sinks, it will suck nearby things down with it, so maybe this is the reason why the people nearby did not go down to rescue. But those rescuers were also too late, it was simply like watching a show [by then].

A_VIKING:

Watching the video made me very angry! TMD, for there to be casualties even in this kind of situation is simply unacceptable. The patrol boat by the side was at most only 20 meters away, and according to the video, the entire incident lasted at least 1 minute and 25 seconds (in reality, it was longer), which was completely enough for a rescue!
I pay my respects to the woman who died an unjust death!
Strongly request investigating the incompetent rescuers’ responsibility!

joceee:

After watching, I was first angry, then I felt like there was nothing that could be done…life is truly fragile, especially in China.

jojohsu:

Sigh, if I were present, I probably would have rushed in with a life preserver around me.
Otherwise, I might see this scene every time I close my eyes for the rest of my life.

tfwuliwuzuo:

If foreigners see this video, our harmonious country will be attacked/slandered yet again.

gaomingnet:

I imagine she was knocked unconscious, the car increasing speed backwards, and her head hitting the steering wheel, or maybe she was stuck by the airbag?

maomaoch:

Her man does not love this woman, or at least it is not the “willing to sacrifice one’s life” kind of love, how sad.

lilylilyli05:

We cannot completely blame the nearby rescue boat. Last year, this place also had something similar happen. A mother with three children fell into the river. They too were not rescued. There’s a limit to people’s reactions during critical moments, and everything else is just what the bystanders say. Without experiencing it oneself, one has no way of appreciating the situation at the time. I also am not very clear about the details of the situation. Let us just pay our respects to the deceased, and hope that she can rest in peace.

hotdogps:

Bastards! Such bastards! Fuck!

zytzyt:

You guys have hypothesized this much, yet I bet even if you broke the window, it would not be certain that she could get out. Actually, just looking at how women ride bicycles says it all.

PS: When men riding bicycles suddenly encounter people, they basically brake and put their feet down to stop.
Women yell and shake the handles, before finally falling on the ground.

Of course, I still need to despise a bit that nearby rescue boat for just watching the show.

One KDS member also linked to this video on how to get out of a sinking car:

See Also:

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Kai

Monday, February 9, 2009 at 8:57 pm

LoL, are you serious? Do you have a link you could share with us?

If that was seriously the “professionals’” excuse, that’s a new level of incompetency. Did they try explaining what they were hoping for by not breaking the “water surface”? Were they hoping to avoid her sinking sooner because they were waiting for help or was it purely just to prolong her last remaining moments of terror?

washingtondude

Monday, February 9, 2009 at 10:55 pm

Shanghai daily from 2or3 days ago:
“Actually, the two maritime officers on that boat were in close contact with the water rescue force during the incident,” said a senior offictial with the Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration. “They feared taht teh approach of their boat would break the water surface and cause the floating car to sink,” the official said.

too yellow

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 7:45 am

@Nathan C
“If this happen in the US, you will see at least a dozen people diving into the river to save that woman… ”

Well, Seven people just watched as a girl’s head was chopped off in Virginal Tech. The whole event supposed to have lasted a minute before police could arrive. Bystander effect and shock of “this isn’t happening” is universal and much stronger than you think.

jayman

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 11:52 am

First off, Xin Yang wasn’t there with a husband and child. Her only companion was the one cutting her apart. And we have no idea what the witnesses did, other than two of them called 911. Every article I’ve seen is either the AP wire report or based off of it, and not one of them describes the actual murder. They say there was no argument preceding it and that the killer was holding her head when police arrived (less than 2 minutes after being called).

Not one article described the witnesses or their actions. No one knows whether they were male or female, or if they even would have been physically able to stop the attacker. Since it occured in the cafe in her dormitory building, it’s at least possible it was only women.

And we can only assume that they made no moves to confront him, since there is no mention of heroics, but a lack of testimony means we are unable to know. There is a two minute gap in the continuity, which perhaps will be addressed if the case makes it to trial.

How is helping someone out of the water anywhere near the same as confronting an armed man anyway? Stretching to try to make connections where none exist weakens the argument, which had already been strongly agreed upon, that there are many factors that must contribute to allow something like this to happen.

jayman

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 11:59 am

Sorry for the double post.

“They feared taht teh approach of their boat would break the water surface and cause the floating car to sink,” the official said.

Maybe they were waiting for the woman to exit the vehicle, when it would be simpler to get her out of the water. Also, saying the police were in contact with water rescue makes it seem like they were waiting for a different crew who could safely enter the water to extract her, since she was ultimately unable (or as I believe, unwilling) to escape on her own.

GGooDeiMC

Friday, September 18, 2009 at 1:47 am

Yeah. This is weird because someone should have jumped in the water and helped the woman. Why was the coastguard* just standing there doing anything.

This woman’s life is gone because of some bullshit.

Musa

Thursday, December 31, 2009 at 5:20 am

Im in Florida and cars go into the water all the time. Its quite possible for a person to be saved from this by breaking the window with a knife, or carkeys, or tool, waiting for the water to fill the cab, and then slip out. This video ran 1:26. There was enough time for someone with a tool to swim up to the car, break the window, wait for the water filled up (seconds), and then pull the lady out. From God we come, to God we return.

jin

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 4:13 pm

some people need to learn how to read :P

Her husband and 18-year-old son were not in the car at the time and were forced to watch from the boat as workers and bystanders stopped them from jumping into the water.