Girl may lose fingers from frostbite after sweeping campus snow

A 13-year-old junior high school student in Anda, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, may lose the fingers of her right hand due to severe frostbite caused while sweeping snow on campus, according to local media.

Lu Yanyan, who is in the first year at Taipingzhuang Town Middle School in Anda, swept snow without wearing gloves along with her classmates for nearly three hours in the extremely cold morning of Dec 31, 2019.

"While cleaning, I felt pain on my hands and later I could only feel numbness," said Lu. 

After finishing the task, Lu told her teacher about the injury and was taken by her parents to a hospital in Daqing, a city about 80 kilometers away from her school, to receive treatment in the afternoon.

According to a doctor, frostbite usually needs 10 to 15 days of observation.

"The edema on her hands is easy to recover, but some parts of her fingers have turned black due to severe frostbite, which needs to recover gradually," the doctor told the local media. "After several days of treatment, the frostbite area is shrinking, but we don't exclude the possibility of amputating her fingers once the condition becomes worse."

"We have confirmed that Lu's frostbite was caused while sweeping snow on campus, but we haven't dealt with any similar case before," said the school headmaster. "We will never shirk responsibilities if defined by related departments."

"We are trying to find a solution to cover the treatment cost for her," he added.

Further investigation by the local government is underway.