The tale of a truckload of apples belonging to a sick delivery driver has turned into a story of kindness and compassion as hospital staff and residents in central China's Hubei Province rallied to help the stricken man sell off the stranded fruit, with the warm intervention of local people touching hearts across the nation after the news went viral.
The heartwarming story began on Saturday began when Ji Yaozhong, a 44-year-old truck driver from northwest China's Shaanxi Province, set off in his vehicle filled with a whooping 4,000 kilograms of apples.
After covering hundreds of kilometers on the road, Ji suddenly fell ill behind the wheel, though he was able to drive himself to a nearby emergency center at the Xianfeng Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Hubei. He was later diagnosed with an acute cerebral infarction, a type of stroke.
Luckily, after receiving urgent treatment, Ji was able to survive but was left unable to move freely, while the mountain of apples remained stuck in his truck right by the hospital.
With the early summer heat setting in, the fruit risked spoiling, which would have marked a significant financial loss for Ji and his family if he had to cover the costs.
Two days later, aware of the poor driver's plight, the hospital launched an appeal in an online chat group for staff members, calling for some charitable assistance. Hospital employees soon gathered at the inpatient building gate to buy bags of apples for themselves and passed the message along on the popular WeChat messaging service.
"Our medical workers were also looking for ways to help this patient solve his problem. We wondered if the hospital could take the lead, so called on staff to come and buy some of the apples and ease his financial burden," said Wu Huan, head of the hospital's publicity office.
The message quickly spread beyond the hospital walls. Delivery riders, taxi drivers, and passers-by all joined in, turning the once-abandoned truck by the hospital entrance into a bustling marketplace. The apples had become a shared concern for the whole town of Xianfeng.
Many took time out of their day to make a point of stopping by and helping out the sickly driver after hearing of his situation.
"I came over at around 21:00, the busiest time for making deliveries. Normally, I'd earn more than 100 yuan (almost 15 U.S. dollars) at that time, but I didn't think too much about my income. We just wanted to help him sell those apples quickly," said a delivery driver named Deng Hao.
After a remarkable 19-hour-long sales campaign, the full truck 4,000 kilograms of apples had all been snapped up by Tuesday morning, saving Ji's family from suffering a potential loss of some 30,000 yuan (over 4,400 U.S. dollars).
As he recovered in his hospital bed upstairs, Ji expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the actions of the kind-hearted local people of Xianfeng, who showed what can happen when a community comes together.
"If not for the Xianfeng Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine helping to sell my apples, and so many warm-hearted people buying, I really don't know what I would have done," said Ji.
"The people of Xianfeng are truly kind. They were full of passion, simple and good-hearted, and everyone showed such love," said Ji's wife Liang Lili, who made the journey to be by his side.
Compassionate locals spring into action to buy up truckload of apples after driver hospitalized
