Chinese couple crowdfund for grandson’s hospital bills, and put their house up for sale, after he falls six storeys from window

Lu Pengyinuo, six, has been in hospital for a year, and his grandparents have used all their savings to pay his bills. Desperate to keep his treatment going, they launched a crowdfunding appeal, as many Chinese families do

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Six-year-old Lu Pengyinou was paralysed last year after a six-storey fall. His mother left home when he was a baby and his father is stuck at home with depression. His grandparents turned to crowdfunding to continue paying his hospital bills. Photo: courtesy of Yang Cuiping and Lu Bingxing

Published: 8:16am, 16 Aug 2018Updated: 7:28pm, 16 Aug 2018

An accident in July last year upended the lives of Yang Cuiping and Lu Bingxing. Their grandson Lu Pengyinuo, now six years old, fell from their sixth-floor flat in Shanxi, northern China, late one night while they were sleeping.

Yang said: “He woke up at 5am and played with a mobile phone near the window. He dropped the mobile [onto the street]. He looked out of the window to see where it dropped, lost his balance and fell to the ground.”

A mobile phone image of Lu Pengyinuo receiving treatment in Beijing last year. Photo: Simon Song

In a coma for 24 days at the Shanxi Provincial Children’s Hospital, he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus (swelling of the brain), fluid in his lungs, and a broken collarbone.

Yang said: “He had been running a high fever. After two months in the Shanxi hospital, their doctor told us we should take him to a better hospital in Beijing or Shanghai for further treatment.”

The 200,000-yuan (US$29,000) bill at the Shanxi hospital wiped out the couple’s savings. They had Pengyinuo admitted to Beijing’s Hospital of Hui Minority last November. A month’s stay at the hospital cost 20,000 yuan.