Call for more first-aid awareness after student goes into coma

Xing Yingkuan and his friends. [Photo/Chengdu Business Daily]

Xing Yingkuan, a high school graduate, has been in coma for more than a week after a heart attack.

Xing Xiangyun, father of the college-bound youth from Weiyuan county, Southwest China's Sichuan province, told China Daily that he has partially regained respiratory function and heartbeat after treatments.

Xing, 18, was doing part-time jobs in the provincial capital of Chengdu after graduating from high school.

He fainted after playing basketball with his friends on the afternoon of July 31. One of the his friends said Xing complained of being "tired" about half an hour before he fell into coma, reported Chengdu Business Daily on Monday.

His friends tried to resuscitate him on the scene before Xing was sent to The Fifth Hospital of Chengdu by paramedics.

The accident happened two days after Xing received the letter of admission from the computer science school of the Southwest Petroleum University.

"I am looking forward to meaningful four years in the college," he said on social networking platform WeChat on the day.

After the national college entrance exam, Xing went to Chengdu to do part-time jobs to save money to buy a pair of new basketball shoes. Yang Xiuying, his mother, said basketball is one of the hobbies of Xing and he plays the game every week.

Xing's father said the medical treatments have cost the family more than 80,000 yuan ($11,900), a large sum of money for them. Fortunately, the family has received more than 80,000 yuan of donation from crowdfunding platforms.

After the incident happened, 39 friends and classmates of Xing have recorded their voices in an audio clip to play it in the Intensive Care Unit ward in hope of waking him up.

"One more second you lie on the bed is one more bit of torture for us," said one of his friends in the audio. Another friend of him played a saxophone melody of Auld Lang Syne in the audio.

Every year, more than half a million people die of heart attack in China, according to a media report, with the success rate of rescue at less than one percent.

Wang Xifu, an emergency training instructor with the American Heart Association, called for more awareness of first aid and a wider distribution of Automated External Defibrillator (AED) in public spaces.

"As an emergency doctor, my ideal is not to save patients in the ICU every day, but to help spread the first-aid knowledge, and enable everyone to an emergency situation," he told Chengdu Business Daily.