A two-year-old toddler was run over by two vans and mortally wounded,
after which 18 people passed her indifferently in south China's
Guangdong Province.

Thanks to the 19th passer-by, a woman
garbage collector who came to her aid about seven minutes after the
first hit, the girl didn't die immediately in last Thursday's incident.
But doctors said the girl died yesterday from severe brain injuries she
had suffered in the accident.

Police have detained both drivers.

After
the surveillance video of the incident was put online yesterday, many
netizens condemned the 18 passers-by who could have helped the girl
avoid the second accident. The case was the latest to bring home the
question of whether people today are too cold-blooded to help, or
whether it's smart to stay away from an accident to avoid the chance of
being accused of responsibility by the victim.

The girl,
identified by her parents as Yueyue, was knocked down by a van about
5:30pm last Thursday, when walking alone in a hardware wholesaling
market in the city of Foshan. The car driver stopped for a while after
the front wheel rolled over the girl. But he sped away soon and the rear
wheel crushed her again.

A witness walked around the girl lying
on the narrow street without stopping, the surveillance camera showed.
Then a biker and a pedestrian passed her but ignored the girl struggling
in a pool of blood.

A second van driver, who didn't see the
girl, crushed her again and fled the scene. After the second hit,
Yueyue became motionless.

Over the ensuing five minutes, 15 people passed her and each of them just took a look. None stopped to lend a hand.

Then
finally, about seven minutes after the girl was hit by the first van,
the trash collector came to her aid. She rushed to help her sit up but
Yueyue was paralyzed. So the woman moved her from the middle of the
street to the side. She yelled for help and Yueyue's mother came and
held her daughter in her arms.

Yueyue was rushed to the
General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command, where she remained in
the intensive care unit until she died yesterday afternoon.

"She couldn't breathe on her own," said Wen Qiang, deputy director of the ICU department.

The
incident is the latest example of passers-by acting indifferently to
victims injured in crimes. In this case, some blamed the parents for
letting the girl walk on the street alone. More criticized the
phenomenon of people passing by without helping, caused at least in part
by previous extortion attempts from the injured and their families who
have sometimes tried to blame the person helping.