Chinese Italian seriously injured in train crash
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Xinhua, July 26, 2011
Shortly after Geovanna Pan, a Chinese Italian, took off the respirator in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), he inquired about the whereabouts of his girlfriend Sissy.
Pan, aged 23, was seriously injured and was separated from his girlfriend after a deadly high-speed train collision late Saturday near Wenzhou City in east China's Zhejiang Province.
"Where is my girlfriend? Is she okay?" Pan asked his doctors at the No. 2 People's Hospital in Wenzhou City, in Chinese.
When the accident occurred, Pan was in the train D3115, which was rear-ended by D301.
"In the crash, his neck, spine and lungs were injured. He's now in a stable condition, but not out of life danger," said You Rongkai, director of the hospital's emergency medicine department.
"He was awake when taken here, but has suffered oxygen deficiency. The situation was critical," recalled You.
Pan's parents were born in Wenzhou and run a business in Italy. He had been living in Italy. It was his first time back in Wenzhou in six years.
"This time, I took my girlfriend to visit my grandparents in my hometown. We go to university together in Italy and we've been together for a year. She's a pure Italian," Pan said.
"If you meet her, please ask her whether she is fine, and tell her, I miss her," he said, after knowing that a Xinhua reporter would visit the injured passengers in other hospitals.
When talking about his girlfriend, Pan wept several times. His shoulders are tattooed with her name.
According to You, if the current treatment goes smooth, Pan will still need to be in bed for half a year.
The No. 2 People's Hospital in Wenzhou City admitted 38 injured passengers after the accident. Three of them died after failing to respond to emergency treatment, and five others are being treated in the ICU, said Sun Jun, deputy head of the hospital.
Most of the the train crash victims in the hospital had sustained injuries to the head, chest or suffered fractures, Sun said.
The train collision has killed 39 people as of 6 p.m. Monday. The crash also left 192 injured, 12 of whom remained in critical condition.
An official with the Press Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy told Xinhua via phone that the family of an Italian citizen were en route to Wenzhou for body identification.
"We, however, could not 100 percent confirm the citizen's death before body identification," said the official, who did not give his name.
He said he knew that Pan is being treated in Wenzhou, but did not reveal whether the deceased was Pan's girlfriend.
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