Chinese woman cited for rescuing US campus students

"When coming back into the room, she told her students that the situation was in peril and then called every one to crawl onto the ground. One student from India, Zach Petkowicz, who was near the lectern "cowering behind it", realized the door was vulnerable, so proposed propping it up to stop the gunman from entering the room. There was a heavy rectangular table in the class, and she and several of her students pushed it against the door. When sporadic fire shots were heard, Cheng urged her students not to be scared but to hide themselves. No sooner had they fixed it in place than the gunman pushed hard from the outside. He forced it open about six inches, but no farther. He fired two shots through the door. In an e'mail to her friends, she said "we all crawled on the ground and felt very panic when heard the gunman change (cartridge) chargers. People inside the room used mobile phones to report the case to police. The gunman tried hard to open the doors several times but failed and then moved on. But sporadic fire shots did not end. Cheng and her students hid them in the room till they heard sounds of siren from outside the window.

These startled students and Cheng stayed behind in the room till everything calmed down outside and heard knocks on the door. They finally verified when Cheng verified those knocked on the door was policeman. When the police were leaving, they told students it was safe then and other fellow policemen would soon arrive soon. And other police came one minute later, students lined up after them and escaped, Cheng acknowledged.

Once outside the classroom, Haiyan Cheng saw used cartridges scattered on the ground, She urged her students to run away and not to step onto blood strains. When Cheng heard a female student sobing, she turned round to take her hand and lead her to safety along with other students.

As soon as she escaped the danger, she emailed her husband and her research team about her safety.

Despite praises lavished upon her, Cheng remained a low profile, saying her students had filled her with pride, and they did very well indeed. They worked together at the critical moment and made the correct decision. She said she felt extremely brtu sorry and appalled about such a tragedy, which posed a terrible nightmare for Virginia Tech.

On the evening of April 16, Haiyan Cheng attended a funeral service at Blacksburg Church at the site of Virginia Tech, an Associated Press reporter took a photo of her praying for those who had died in the mass killings, which were used by a number of American media press units. On April 17, Cheng and her husband were shown attending another grand funeral service, The Washington Post carried her story in its websites, which was spread far and wide. People praised her "bravery" and the friend of one reporter referred to her as "the great hero of that classroom', and quite a few netizens said that she had won the honor for the Chinese, and foster their "positive image".

Zheng, who however remained sober-minded, referred to herself as as simply "no hero". She said she was simple-minded, and what she was thinking about was only for survive. To be specific, they only did a correct thing, she said.

( By People's Daily Online, and it authors are PD reporter Duan Congcong and PD special report to the UN Headquarters Hou Lingyu )

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Editor:Du Xiaodan