Alibaba.com Rewards Hero Mother Who Saved Child From 10th Floor Fall

Alibaba.com will reward one its workers with 200,000 RMB (which is about US$31,000) in cash after she miraculously saved a young child that fell from a tenth-floor apartment window. The woman, now known across China as the ‘Hero Mother,’ saw a neighbor’s child clinging to a window-sill and positioned herself for a life-saving catch of the two-year old kid.

The ‘Hero Mother’ is 31-year-old Wu Juping (pictured right), an employee at Alibaba HQ in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province. She herself is a new mother.

Speaking to national television yesterday – after suffering an arm fracture upon catching the toddler – Mrs Wu said that (excuse my rough translation and paraphrasing) when she saw the child hanging from the tenth-floor window, her mother’s instinct kicked in and she just knew she had to try to save the child. She went on to say that her own child was recently hurt in a small fall from a chair, and this experience was also a factor in her rushing to the rescue. Mrs Wu said she didn’t want to imagine the pain of that child’s mother if the child died.

A handsome reward

Thankfully, due to the hero’s catch, the kid is alive, but today is still on life-support as a result of liver and spleen damage sustained in the fall. The incident happened on Saturday.

Today on Sina Weibo, Alibaba’s PR head in Shanghai announced (see the screenshot, above) that Mrs Wu would be given a RMB 200,000 “compassion award” from the e-commerce company. In addition, Alibaba will pick up medical costs and pay for sick leave until Mrs Wu feels well enough to get back to work.

Here’s a Chinese news report on Youku that was filmed at the weekend, interviewing Mrs Wu and showing the building from which the child plummeted:

[Source: Techweb.com.cn – article in Chinese]