Chinese Good Samaritan commits suicide over hit-and-run accusations
A man who went to the aid of a senior citizen who appeared to have been knocked down in the street took his own life after receiving huge demands for medical fees
A man who aided a senior citizen only to be accused of knocking him down has committed suicide in the face of demands for compensation, Chinese media reported on Wednesday.
The story is an extreme case of a Good Samaritan tale gone sour, where recent reports of helpers facing huge financial demands have triggered a heated debate over the country’s law and morals.
Wu Weiqing, 46, from Dongyuan in the southern province of Guangdong, was riding his motorbike on New Year’s Eve when he came across an elderly man who appeared to have been knocked over, Wu’s widow told the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper.
Wu helped the man up and drove him to a local clinic, she said, where he paid 3,500 yuan (HK$4,445) in medical fees for him.
“My husband never imagined that the old man and his family would turn around and insist that he was the one who struck him down and demand that we pay hundreds of thousands of yuan in damages,” Wu’s widow said.
His daughter Wu Haiyan told the Guangzhou Daily newspaper that two days later her father told friends and relatives the old man’s family was demanding a huge sum for “medical fees”.
