The situation was urgent, with no time to think of anything else, she shouted to the slightly older children, "Go find some long poles quickly."
Those kids were quite quick-witted, immediately turning around and searching everywhere as instructed by Yu Xinyan.
She then turned to the younger children and said, "Quick, go back to the factory and call the adults to come and rescue."
Yu Xinyan finished speaking quickly, seeing that the children hadn’t moved yet, she anxiously said, "What are you standing there for? Go now!"
Those few kids, probably about seven or eight years old, were startled by Yu Xinyan’s words and stumbled off in a hurry towards the factory.
Just then, the older kids had already found poles nearby. Yu Xinyan didn’t have time to care where they got them from, she stretched a pole towards the two children struggling in the river, "Don’t be afraid, grab the pole, I’ll pull you up."
However, after the pole was stretched out, it was still a bit short, couldn’t reach the children. Yu Xinyan had no choice, without considering her own safety, she took off her outer coat and got into the water; the Yuquan River in April was extremely cold.
One hand gripping the stones at the riverbank, she pushed the pole forward with the other, urgently shouting, "Hurry, grab the pole."
She worried that if they continued to struggle, they would drift farther from shore, making it impossible to reach them with the pole.
The older boy in the water calmed down after hearing Yu Xinyan’s words, tried hard and grabbed the stretched pole. But the younger one seemed exhausted, in that short time he had swallowed several mouthfuls of water, and was visibly drifting downstream with the current.
The boy who had grabbed the pole tried to reach out to catch him, but he was still just a child, and exhausted, he couldn’t muster the strength. After several attempts, he still couldn’t grab him.
Yu Xinyan had no choice but to shout, "Stop trying, I’ll pull you up first."
She feared that if too much time passed, the boy would lose all his strength and encounter an accident; the younger one couldn’t wait any longer, time was life.
She pulled the pole towards herself, then handed it to the children on the bank, "Help pull him ashore quickly."
The children, hearing Yu Xinyan’s words, hurriedly grabbed the pole and pulled quickly, "Jianjun, don’t be afraid, we’ll pull you up."
In that brief moment, the child in the water drifted even further from her, Yu Xinyan didn’t care about her own lack of swimming skills, the emergency of rescuing the child came first.
Taking a deep breath, she swam directly towards the child, the water was moving, the further she swam into the river, the colder it got. Plus, wearing clothes made swimming difficult despite moving with the current.
After quite a struggle, she reached the child, wrapped her arm under his armpit, and began swimming towards the shore.
The wild river had too many unpredictable factors, combined with her just having been discharged from the hospital, her strength quickly waned. Luckily, the older children on the bank ran downstream with them, extending the pole again.
Just at this moment, the children who ran back to the factory for help also arrived with some adults, including the parents of the drowning child.
Everyone scrambled to help pull them ashore, a woman in the crowd rushed over and grabbed the little boy, holding him tightly in her arms, "Wensheng, my son, don’t scare mom, how did you fall into the river?"
"Son, wake up, someone help save my son, Wensheng, you’ll be the death of me."
The woman shook the child in her arms, frightened because he was not responding, she hugged him even tighter.