Emergency hotline dispatcher helps save two lives

Jiang Linping, a dispatcher for the 120 emergency hotline in Pulandian district in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province, answered a call on Saturday. Forty-six minutes later, she had helped save the lives of a husband and wife who were overcome by carbon monoxide.

"My husband and I are sick now. I'm dizzy," the woman at the other end of the line whispered.

"Are you exposed to poison gas? Open the windows quickly," Jiang told her.

"We're lying on the bed. I can't move now," the woman said.

When Jiang asked her to give more information about their address, there was no answer. Experience told her that the couple was likely overcome by carbon monoxide.

In winter, the temperature in Pulandian drops to about below 10 C. Some residents living in rural areas or small bungalows still burn coal in oldfashioned fireplaces, which produces carbon monoxide, to heat their homes.

Jiang immediately reported to Qu Aijun, director of the emergency center of Pulandian, who then contacted local police to help locate the couple.

While keeping communications open with the police, Qu and his colleagues drove an ambulance towards the rough location the woman gave.

At the emergency center, Jiang kept talking on the phone to encourage the couple, even though she got no response.

As the police and her colleagues knocked on doors in Tangfang village, she finally heard the rattling of the door at the other end of the line.

"I hear the knocking! Yes, we found them," she told Qu in another call. She said she was so excited that she almost jumped from her chair.

They found the couple, who had fallen into a coma due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Thanks to the timely rescue, the woman and her husband are out of danger.