In the past year or so, Gan Yu tried his best not to recall the experience of escaping in the wilderness. He doesn't talk to others, doesn't read past news, focuses on the present, and puts himself in a calm state of mind.
But once again standing on Tiger Hill, he could not hide his excitement. This time, he finally saw the surrounding terrain clearly. On one side was a steep cliff, with the reservoir area of the Dadu River Dagangshan Hydropower Station below. On the other side was the exposed rock that collapsed in large areas after the earthquake. He climbed up the mountain from the east of the bay. , the only possible way down the mountain is the pass where Ni Taigao often herds sheep.
In the silent winter, there is only the sound of wind in Menghugang.
At noon on September 5, 2022, a 6.8-magnitude earthquake occurred in Luding County, Sichuan. The mountain collapsed and roads were interrupted. Gan Yu was responsible for the construction of a power station project in Wandong Village, Detuo Town, Luding County. After the earthquake, he took the risk to rescue injured employees. After other personnel evacuated in time, he and his colleague Luo Yong climbed up to the reservoir area to open the gate. Release floods to prevent dam breaks from endangering downstream villages and towns. When they escaped again, the only river leading to the outside of the mountain had been flooded due to the opening of the gate...
Two days later, Gan Yu was exhausted and asked Luo Yong to go out to find rescue, and the two separated. Luo Yong was rescued on the third day after the earthquake, but rescuers never found any trace of Gan Yu. It was not until the morning of September 21 that year that Ni Taigao, a villager from Yuejin Village, Wanggangping Township, Shimian County, Sichuan, rescued Gan Yu in Menghu Gang. It was already the 17th day after the earthquake.
Gan Yu and Ni Taigao took a group photo at Menghugang. He was trapped on the top of the mountain on the left behind him.
It was a dark escape experience. In the vast mountains, he could only face it alone. When he was rescued, Gan Yu had more than 10 injuries on his body and lost more than 20 kilograms. For 17 days, he ate wild fruits, grass roots, and drank water squeezed from moss. He had hallucinations, heard people talking, and heard babies crying, but there was no response to his calls...
On the morning of January 19, 2024, 485 days after being rescued, Gan Yu returned to the Tigers for the first time under the leadership of Ni Taigao Post. It was difficult for him to describe his mood. There was an inner tremor and a feeling of being separated from another world.
He understands that life has a long way to go and cherishes the life he has now. He just returned to his hometown and bought a car. He and his girlfriend have agreed on a wedding date. They will get the certificate before the Spring Festival and hold the wedding in April this year. Over the past year or so, he has also learned to get along closely with his parents who have been estranged since childhood, and he has become more proactive in doing what he wants to do...
The past of escaping death is getting further and further away, but he deeply feels that this has become his An indelible mark on life.
01 Return to Menghugang "The dark room in my heart was suddenly opened"
The water in the Dagangshan reservoir area is blue, reflecting the white clouds in the sky. After the landslide spots were cleared, the road up the mountain from the reservoir area was paved with cement pavement. On the steep cliff, the road wound up to Ni Taigao's former home.
Going up further, you can reach the pass next to Menghugang.
After the Luding earthquake, Gan Yu was trapped in Menghugang for two days. He remembered that it was just dawn when he climbed to the top of the mountain, and that exactly two dark nights had passed by the morning when he was rescued by Ni Taigao. The top of the mountain is an open grassland, surrounded by dense forests and shrubs. It rained sporadically during those two days, and the mountains were shrouded in clouds and mist. He had long since lost his glasses, which were more than 600 degrees short-sighted. He could not see clearly the terrain around him and down the mountain, and he could not find the way down the mountain.
Standing here again, Gan Yu lamented that he finally saw clearly the Tiger Hill, the mountain that had been impossible to get out of. He also confirmed that the place where he tried to climb down on the first day was a cliff. The landslide caused by the earthquake was still clearly exposed, and below was the reservoir area of the Dagangshan Hydropower Station. At that time, he climbed to the edge of the cliff and climbed up again with difficulty.
Standing on the pass of Menghugang, deep in the valley ahead is the Wandong Power Station where he works.
During the two days of being trapped, he dragged his injured foot around the grassland. There were traces of villagers grazing on it. I found a path, but after walking for a while I soon found it was blocked by a landslide. Ni Taigao confirmed that this no longer existing road once led to Yuejin Village.
When the sun came out the next afternoon, he lay down and basked in the sun for a while. He was soaked, and the warmth and comfort of the sun made him temporarily forget his trapped situation.But this feeling soon passed. The clouds and mist in Menghugang, which is nearly 2,000 meters above sea level, are flowing and the sunshine is always fleeting.
He took advantage of the sun to see the faint road in the direction of Yuejin Village, like a blurry white belt. He felt that he could go down the mountain in this direction, so he tried to find a way out through the dense forest, but it got dark before he could climb very far. He could only rest under the trees and fell asleep in a daze.
After daybreak, he heard someone shouting "Oh-oh-oh", and he quickly responded "Help". That was Ni Taigao's voice, like a rope in a deep well, hanging from the wellhead. Gan Yu couldn't wait to catch it...
When he was trapped in the mountain, Gan Yu heard human voices many times. He heard someone talking on a steep slope, and heard a baby crying at Menghugang, but there was no response when he called as hard as he could. He heard it so vividly, but later he had to admit that it was probably just his own hallucination.
Gan Yu couldn't hide his excitement when he climbed up to Tiger Hill again. This was his first time back here 485 days after he was rescued. Ni Taigao led the way, and he followed silently, with many trapped details resurfacing in his mind.
Gan Yu and Ni Taigao return to Menghugang
When he was first rescued, he would often dream about being trapped. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night, and it would take him a while to confirm that he had been rescued. After returning from the hospital, he lived in his hometown in Dazhu, Dazhou for three or four months before this nightmare gradually faded away.
He would no longer think about the details of being trapped, and even tried to avoid this memory for a long time. Even if he doesn't read the news in the past, when someone asks about it, he always says "haha". He said that he doesn't have any obvious stress trauma, but thinking about this experience still makes him a little sad and uneasy.
This past event was kept in a "dark room" in his heart, unwilling to touch or open. He said that returning to Menghugang might be a kind of spiritual release. The dark room was suddenly opened, and he suddenly felt relaxed.
Today, standing on Menghugang, you can see more traces of landslides. On both sides of the canyon from Wandong Village, there is almost no vegetation on the cliffs after a large number of landslides. Gan Yu lamented that he actually climbed from the steep cliff to the top of the mountain. "I admire myself for being able to climb out of that kind of mountain and surpassing my own limits."
02 Life is imprinted with peace and cherishment, "Experiencing life and death has changed me a lot."
Returning to Tiger Hill, Gan Yu found the place where he was rescued. He also confirmed that before Ni Taigao rescued him, he tried to go down the mountain in the wrong direction again. He once bypassed a landslide and deviated from the original direction. Further down, there was another cliff formed by collapse.
After the earthquake, Ni Taigao's house collapsed and his waist was also injured. Along with all the villagers, he retreated to a tent in Diajiao Village at the foot of the mountain, and stayed at Shimian County People's Hospital for a week. As soon as he recovered a little, he applied to Xiang Shang and Murakami to return to the village to take care of the sheep.
Ni Taigao met the search and rescue team members who had withdrawn from the mountain in the village and learned that "someone from Wandong may be trapped on the mountain." For the next two days, he shouted towards the mountain to search, and finally heard Gan Yu's voice of "help".
On the mountain, Gan Yu had forgotten the time. He did not expect that he would be trapped for 17 days. Unable to sleep in the dark night, he heard the cries of wild animals, the howling wind, and the rumbling and collapsing mountains around him. He felt scared at first, but slowly became numb.
He thought of many past events, the village where he ran when he was a child, his grandma's warm stove, his parents still waiting anxiously... and a hot pot meal.
Photos of Gan Yu when he was rescued Data picture
After coming out of the hospital, Gan Yu returned to his hometown to recuperate. He lifted his injured foot and put it on a stool, then leaned on the sofa and watched TV. Grandma didn't even leave the house, so she just sat beside him and stayed with him quietly. Many relatives came to visit, chatted together, talked about past events, and went to bed early at night.
The village was quiet. He slept soundly and felt a sense of security that he had never felt before. After getting up in the morning, he walked out of the yard on crutches. Outside the yard was a large pond. The cool breeze blew and the water waves were very gentle.
He said that this experience changed him a lot. He learned to cherish the current life and became more peaceful. He felt that after "experienced life and death", many things became less important. The most important thing is the warmth of family together, and what you want to do must be done in time...
When he was a child, his parents had been working outside, and he lived with his grandparents. He feels a sense of alienation from his parents and misses them in his heart, but he can't speak to them after meeting them. After this experience, he felt that his relationship with his parents suddenly became closer. With the care and love of his parents, he found the companionship and love that he had missed in childhood.
Over the past year or so, he carefully prepared for the first-level construction engineer exam. He passed three of the four courses at once, and there is still one course to take in 2024. He has been promoted to project manager in his unit, and he feels that he still has a lot of business knowledge to learn and accumulate.
Gan Yu who works in the workplace, photo by Tang Wenqi
He also has a girlfriend, who was introduced by a relative. After this experience, his parents became more concerned about his marriage. While he was still in the hospital, they asked relatives to introduce him to a partner. He added WeChat to his girlfriend, and while he was recuperating, his relationship with his girlfriend was slowly warming up. His girlfriend works in Chongqing and already knows his story and qualities without him introducing himself. During the relationship, his girlfriend felt that his greatest advantage was his sense of responsibility.
Gan Yu wears myopic glasses, wears jeans and sneakers, and speaks concisely and softly. He claimed to be a typical science and engineering man. He had been on several blind dates before. Each time, he politely left his contact information and chatted politely until nothing happened. He said that he had found the right person this time. His girlfriend was cheerful and he was introverted. The two of them complemented each other very well.
Gan Yu felt that he was still the same person as before, but he also realized that many things in his life had quietly changed, and his mentality also changed with it... He said that in his memory, the past of surviving in the wilderness became farther and farther away. But it has become a mark in life.
03 Setting the wedding date "Life and love are about living a real life"
It took Ni Taigao more than an hour to help Gan Yu down from a steep cliff of 200 to 300 meters. There was only a little space to walk, and he did not care about the pain in his back. Climb down with Gan Yu. Two ordinary people with no connection with each other became "friends of life and death" at this moment. After
was rescued, Gan Yu was already in a state of confusion. He did not remember the process clearly. He only remembered seeing Ni Taigao, feeling both happy and excited, "holding Brother Ni and crying loudly." After he was confirmed to have been rescued, his spirit completely relaxed and he could no longer even stand up.
But he never gave up hope of survival. When he and Luo Yong escaped separately, Luo Yong once told him that he could find the road built by the forest farm by climbing over the mountain. He only had one belief: to climb up the mountain and find that road.
What he most wanted to see in the mountains was his parents and relatives, and he dreamed of eating with his family at night. He thought about what to do if he couldn't get out? At that moment, he realized that family ties were more important than life, and he wanted to write a suicide note. If he didn't go out, his parents would not do anything stupid because of it, and he could live a good life. He also had a younger brother who could be relied upon by his parents. ...But at that time in the mountains, he couldn't write these down at all.
This was undoubtedly the most painful feeling for Gan Yu when he was trapped. Even now, Gan Yu still bursts into tears when talking about it.
After being rescued in Menghugang, Ni Taigao took a photo of Gan Yu sitting on the ground. Gan Yu's face was haggard, and his clothes and pants were in tatters. There is a crack more than 10 centimeters wide on the ground. Many such cracks appeared on the mountain after the earthquake. Therefore, Yuejin Village was listed as a geological disaster site and was relocated and rebuilt.
It has been more than a year since the earthquake. Ni Taigao is about to move into a new house rebuilt in Tongguan and start a new life. Gan Yu also agreed on a wedding date and started a new life journey.
Ni Taigao is about to move to a new home, and Gan Yu is about to get married and start a family. The two toast to congratulate each other.
After recovering from his injuries, his parents tried to persuade him not to go back to work in the mountains, but he told his parents that after experiencing such a life and death difficulty, Coming back here is the real starting over.Before the earthquake, he was responsible for on-site construction, working two shifts, which was very hard and boring. At that time, his plan was to continuously improve himself and strive to change his job or position. The Wandong Power Station was severely damaged after the earthquake and has not yet restarted. Gan Yu, who has been promoted to project manager, is currently mainly working on sorting out information and handling insurance company claims.
Because he works in Luding, Gan Yu can only see his girlfriend once every two months. When he is on vacation, he will go directly to Chongqing. Sometimes he will go to the Chengdu company for meetings, and his girlfriend will come from Chongqing to see him. There was no sense of ceremony in his proposal to his girlfriend. One time while having dinner at a restaurant in Chengdu, he and his girlfriend talked about getting married. "It was decided by two people," it was natural.
In mid-January, Gan Yu just returned to his hometown, bought a car, and agreed on a wedding date with his girlfriend. He will get the certificate before the Spring Festival and hold the wedding in April this year. He said that life and love are lived in a real way.
Before the earthquake, Gan Yu rarely called his parents. He always reported good news but not bad news on the phone. His parents only knew that he was working in Luding and did not know that he was working at a construction site in the mountains. Now, wherever he goes, he will immediately tell his parents and girlfriend that he is safe.
Regarding the feats of rescuing the injured and opening flood gates to release floods after the earthquake, he thought it was normal. "That is a job responsibility and human nature." He said that he might talk about this past event with his children many years later. His tenacity and perseverance in desperate situations might give them some educational significance.
Red Star News reporters Yang Ling, Jiang Lin, Gu Aigang, Yao Yongzhong, photo report
(Source: Red Star News)
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