Qianqian (a pseudonym) underwent a successful five-hour operation at the Wuhan University Oral Medical Hospital to remove 24 steel pellets embedded on the lower left side of her face and jaw. This follows a previous surgery which removed ten pellets.

On January 8, Qianqian and her male cousin went to their grandparents’ house in Yichun, Jiangxi. The boy found a nail gun that was being used for a renovation. After stuffing the barrel with steel pellets, the boy aimed and fired the nail gun at Qianqian’s face.

The children were unattended at the time, but Qianqian was quickly taken to hospital by her grandparents. Qianqian’s parents, who were in Zhejiang working, quickly returned home upon hearing the news.

Due to the number of steel fragments embedded in her face, Qianqian was transferred to Wuhan University Oral Medical Hospital on January 14. There, an internal 3D imaging device likened to a “medical GPS”, was used to remove the remaining pieces (shown above).

Deputy director of orthopedics Li Zhi explained just how lucky Qianqian is:

The (majority of the wounds) mainly converged upon the left side of the face. However, if the gun was aimed just a bit higher, Qianqian might have lost her sight. If aimed just a bit lower, the pellets could have ruptured the main arteries of her neck, threatening her life.

Chinese news reports of the incident do not mention any response from police. There has been no mention of criminal charges against the boy or the owner of the nail gun.

Unattended children in China have been involved in a number of recent escalator accidents and falls from apartment buildings.

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Video surveillance shows three young girls playing close to a moving escalator on the fourth floor of a mall in Kunming, Yunnan.

Two of the children were able to jump from step to step but, three year-old Xixi was too small to follow them. Instead, she played with the moving handrail. She was soon lifted up and over the side of the escalator before falling four floors to the ground below.

Xixi later died from her injuries on the way to the hospital. An investigation is said to be pending.

Escalator accidents involving children are all too common in China. Just last week, a two year-old girl broke her finger in an escalator accident at a shopping mall in Jiangxi. Despite losing a lot of blood, the girl’s finger was saved.

Last November, a trampling incident at a mall in Nanjing sent 15 schoolchildren to the hospital. In October, a four year-old boy died after an escalator at a Chongqing subway station “swallowed” him.

Finally, in what might be the worst escalator fatality in China last year,  a woman was swallowed after a floor panel collapsed in a Hubei mall.  As her final act, the woman threw her child to safety before disappearing under the panel.

The Hubei mall incident prompted various malls, subway stations, and other locations using escalators to place a “safe to step on” decal on their escalator floor panels.

Here’s the video of the most recent incident:

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[This post contains graphic content which may be upsetting to some readers]

An escalator in China has claimed another life at a subway station in Chongqing yesterday.

A four year-old boy died after he was reportedly left unattended with his three year-old sister at the Red Flag Brook subway station, a busy transfer point for the city’s Line 3 and 6 subway routes. At around 11am, the boy was playing with his back to an escalator when he suddenly fell down, and was pulled into the handrail mechanism.

Eyewitnesses say the mother rushed back and frantically tried to pull the boy out herself, but was unsuccessful. After a minute of trying, the boy stopped moving.

Attempts to revive the boy at the hospital were unsuccessful.

Later that afternoon, the Chongqing Municipal Rail Transport Corporation reminded parents to keep a close eye on their kids:

The rail corporation is very saddened at this kind of incident. We again remind all commuters to maintain care of their children and elderly in order to prevent such accidents from ever happening again.

This past July, a mother died a horrific death on video when she fell through an unsecured floor panel while visiting a shopping mall in Hubei. The incident became so entrenched in the public’s mind that shopping malls throughout China affixed decals to escalator floor panels in order to assure patrons they won’t fall through.

In July 2011, a 13 year-old teenager died and 40 people were injured when an escalator headed to the upper floor of the Beijing Zoo Station of the Beijing Metro suddenly slammed into reverse, causing a pile-up of bodies at the bottom.

Unattended children injured in accidents involving escalators have happened before in China, too. This past June, mall surveillance video recorded an unaccompanied child falling from the second floor of a Guangxi shopping mall after playing with an escalator handrail.

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The child’s mother was too upset to talk to media, image courtesy of JZ News.

A 2 year-old girl drowned in a bucket of water in Shenzhen’s Longhua New Zone February 12 while her mother was playing Majiang, according to JZ News.

The child, Xiao Qiongfen, had been left to play in her neighbour’s apartment while her mother played the game and her father, Mr. Dai, was out performing a paper burning ritual.

When she was found at about 4 p.m., emergency services were called, but she was already dead by the time they reached the home in Yuanfen New Village.

Xiao Qiongfen

The bucket, which had been left under a faucet, contained 70-80 centimeters of water, Southern Metropolis Daily reports.

In China, laws against leaving a child unattended are not what they could be. Last month, three unattended toddlers fell from buildings in Shenzhen. Two died and the other sustained severe brain and lung injuries while his father was playing Majiang, Shenzhen Daily reported.

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