Son kept alive with €23 homemade ventilator
So they installed a homemade £20 ventilator that they have hand-pumped 25,920 times a day for the last seven years to keep their brain-damaged son from dying.
Their extraordinary devotion has now gathered national attention, triggering massive donations that give them hope for Fu Xuepeng, who was 23 when he was left brain- damaged by a motorbike accident in 2006.
They couldn’t afford a 100,000 yuan (€11,845) respiratory machine, but neither could they afford to lose their son Fu, a mechanic from east China’s Zhejiang province
This week they received aid from a local hospital that offered to pay for a new breathing machine and agreed to treat Fu without charge. Initially hospital treatment proved too expensive for his parents and they could not pay back debts.
They were told their son would spend the rest of his life in bed and the elderly couple decided to give up work to attend to him full time at home.
Broke, they built an improvised a ventilator machine using a small electric motor and an air bag. “We never think of giving up, not for one second,” Fu Minzu, the patient’s father, told the China Daily newspaper.
“No parents would give up on their child as long as there is a slight chance of living. We have no money, no power, only time and patience,” said Mr Fu.
To keep the electricity bills down, the couple took it in turns to operate the machine manually, requiring tubes to be hand- pressed 25,920 times a day.
Now, since their story emerged, donations are pouring in. “Many warm-hearted, concerned people from all over the country have donated money and materials. Some wired money to Fu Minzu’s bank account, some sent cash and things to the house,” said Mr Wang, the patient’s uncle. “Altogether we now have over 90,000 yuan in the bank.”
And a medical equipment company this week donated and delivered new ventilator machine.
“The family feels really grateful to all these kind-hearted people,” said Mr Wang.
