On the way to deliver the goods, Yang Jun passed Jiange County, Sichuan Province, and saw a group of people surrounded by the river in the distance, shouting. He immediately knew that someone had fallen into the water.

Pulling the car to the side of the road and taking out the rope from the trunk, Yang Jun skillfully walked through the crowd and saw a young girl struggling on the river. He matched the spare tire with the rope to form a simple rescue equipment, and worked with fellow villagers to pull the girl up.

The girl's cousin was rushed farther to save her. Yang Jun revealed his identity to the Jiange Fire Brigade - as the leader of the Red Cross Rescue Brigade in Cangxi County, he got on the lifeboat of the fire brigade. Unfortunately, the young boy had lost his breath when he was rescued.

Yang Jun still remembered that the boy was wearing a pair of white sneakers, which were very high. After he was rescued, doctors, police and firefighters took turns to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation for him, but he was powerless to recover. At the moment of the announcement of death, the boy's parents wailed. Even though Yang Jun was used to life and death, he was still moved.

In accordance with the tradition of the rescue team, after a brief silence on the body, Yang Jun returned to the car and went straight to the delivery destination.

Truck driver "explosive reform" rescue hero

Yang Jun's truck has always carried rescue props such as fire extinguishers, ropes, life jackets, and two sets of "uniforms", one for the rescue team, and the other for the cargo driver. This just represents his dual social identity.

In 2015, a local teacher in Cangxi died because of saving people. When he attended the memorial service, Yang Jun was deeply touched and determined to do something good for others, so he came into contact with the predecessor of the rescue team.

Yang Jun (first from the right) is in the equipment warehouse of the rescue team

In the first few years, we mainly did voluntary activities such as donating money and materials, helping the poor and the elderly, and occasionally participated in body salvage and accident rescue, but we were still "scattered soldiers". In September 2018, Cangxi County Love and Rescue Association was registered, and under the framework, the party branch of the Association and the Red Cross Rescue Brigade were established. The rescue team became an official non-governmental organization.

Today, the Red Cross Rescue Brigade in Cangxi County has more than 300 members, and has set up 8 offices and rescue squadrons in key villages and towns in Cangxi County. For many years, it has been engaged in rescue operations such as salvaging the bodies of drowning people, fire rescue, traffic accident rescue, mountain accident search and rescue, and has participated in major rescue tasks such as Dazhou fire, Bazhong flood, Henan catastrophic flood.

"Most of the team members are farmers, workers, small businesses, and vendors. What we have in common is that we still have the ideal of being chivalrous. When we see the difficulties of others on the roadside, we can't help but go up and ask what we can do," Yang Jun said.

Before becoming a truck driver, Yang Jun was also a "businessman" who opened a small advertising store to provide long-term advertising for two large supermarkets in the county. The people who open the store have relatively flexible time, but occasionally they still delay. "Sometimes the customer's advertising director calls and says," Yang Jun, you get this, and I'll use it tomorrow. But then I may be fishing for bodies by the river, or looking for lost old people in the mountains. "

In recent years, with the economic downturn, advertising business has become more and more difficult to do. Yang Jun has also tried to make a living by repairing mobile phones, working in other places, and organizing expansion training. He is old and young. The old often get sick, and the children ask for money for school. After several years, the economic situation has not improved, and he still owes a lot of foreign debt.

By chance, Yang Jun registered as a truck driver. "This is to get money quickly. Every order you run will be paid for, and the time is flexible." Yang Jun showed his background flow of goods pullers. On June 1-2, because he ran a long distance, his income was about 1000 yuan, and other days, most of the time he ran a day was about 300 yuan.

"Half a hundred years of my life, I just have to suffer more now. I wish I could get money." Yang Jun planned to make more money within two years and pay off the debt.

On the one hand, there is an ordinary driver whose economic situation is not very optimistic, and on the other hand, there is the rescue team leader of "Shenbing Tianjiang". The different "reversal" of the dual identities has increased Yang Jun's fatigue, but has not brought him much psychological gap.

Yang Jun, who takes off his rescue clothes, is a cargo driver

The burden of life pressure falls on his shoulders, but he still feels very promising - he can earn money and do what he feels has a sense of achievement. Over the past nine years, Yang Jun led his team to carry out more than 2500 volunteer services, more than 180 emergency drills, and more than 1500 emergency rescue operations, including unpaid blood donation, urban health creation, and security, and witnessed countless life and death moments in disasters.

There is nothing important in front of life and death. "People will die one day, and everyone will forget you except your family. So we should do something valuable and meaningful in our lifetime, which is worth being remembered by more people."

Balancing work and rescue

In relief organizations, there are not a few people who "bring their families together".

The WeChat avatar of truck driver Hua Mi is impressive - a taxi driver in a rescue team uniform, holding his daughter in one hand and a bunch of flowers in the other, standing in front of the square laughing happily.

That was the scene when Hua Mi returned from the Jiuzhaigou earthquake rescue and was greeted by the people and their families. He held the support of his family and the gratitude of the people in his arms, as if he held the world in his arms.

The returning honey from rescue

Hua Mi and his wife are members of the Zhili rescue team of Baoding Youth Love Volunteers Association. The wife is responsible for the logistics work. The two children grew up in the rescue team when they were young. Now the son who went to college is already a member of the rescue team and will go out to participate in rescue activities. The youngest daughter is still young, but she also cries for a team uniform every day.

The daily work of the rescue team is urban rescue, road rescue, mountain rescue and some large-scale disaster rescue. The so-called urban rescue is mainly to find the lost elderly with Alzheimer's disease. "This kind of old people's loss is often a matter of turning around and looking back. They are also very clean dressed and walk along the road. It is difficult for passers-by to find the old people with Alzheimer's disease." When they find the old people, they are also mostly in some very remote places. According to Hua Mi, the team can find more than 300 people every year.

Hua Mi still remembers an old lady who was found in the abandoned bicycle shed. The rescue team heard the pigeon's cry of "Wuwu" nearby. The gap of the shed door was very narrow, and ordinary people could not get into it. However, Hua Mi's intuition and experience insisted that the security guard opened the door - the old lady was crouching on the ground and shivering. The team members recited the old lady, and her son "flopped" on his knees when he came.

"At that moment, I felt that I didn't care about any pain or tiredness, as long as I saved people," said Huami.

Huami devotes herself to public welfare rescue and even enjoys the process. In his perception, "the balance between work and public welfare" has never been a problem to be solved. He does face the economic pressure of middle-aged people - it was difficult to do the home decoration business before, but now he has started to work as a truck driver.

However, for him, public welfare rescue is more like a redemption after work pressure. Sometimes, when he encounters problems and worries in life, he can get relief when he rescues. "When rescuing, we don't think about anything but finding the person and delivering the goods to the people in need. It's more comfortable and relaxed."

There is a WeChat group called "Zhili Lago Tiantuan" in the Taomi mobile phone. There are 9 people in total, all of whom are members of the rescue team who are engaged in cargo drivers. They get together to discuss not only the rescue team's peers, but also the working skills of "where more lists and better running", such as colleagues and friends. "I feel very happy, especially with the brothers of the rescue team."

Huami at the scene of flood relief in Laishui, Hebei in 2023

Li Tieming, a truck driver who is also in Baoding, has completely integrated work and rescue together.

Li Tieming is mainly involved in emergency vehicle rescue. They cooperate with Baoding Radio Station. Once someone encounters power loss, tire gas loss and other problems while driving, the radio station will synchronize the information to the rescue team as soon as possible after asking for help from the radio station. Volunteers in the team will participate in the rescue according to the principle of "10 minutes" proximity.

This is more like the "mutual help" between the drivers, which will spare 10 minutes on the way and will not have much impact on everyone's work. Li Tieming has been working as a cargo driver for four years. He has rescued 20-30 vehicles every month on average, and hundreds of vehicles in many cases. Even if he changes the route during the order process, he can get understanding as long as he says hello to the cargo owner.

Li Tieming defined the action of himself and the volunteers as a lift of the hand. "We don't need to repay, but we hope that the people we saved will take the initiative to help when they see others need help next time." This "love relay" has received positive response. At present, dozens of more than 400 volunteers in the rescue team have joined after receiving rescue. One of the drivers from the Mancheng District under the jurisdiction of Baoding also set up a small rescue team in the local area.

The "rescue heroes" on the road

In May this year, the platform launched the 2024 "Ordinary Light Charming Driver Selection" activity. Among the 37000 registration materials received, there are many road "rescue heroes" such as Yang Jun, Li Tieming, and Hua Mi. Ren Liang, a member of the Nanjing Blue Sky Rescue Team, Chen Yong, a member of the Haikou Civil Emergency Disaster Rescue Team, and Zhang Jingwen, a member of the Dalian Wanzhong Rescue Jinzhou Team who is good at sea rescue

The truck drivers from all over the world, who usually seem inconspicuous, have the heroic side of saving people from fire and water. But most of them don't take "heroes" seriously.

Yang Jun's rescue team is building a "half-hour public emergency circle" in Cangxi. It gathers the strength of the general team and eight township squadrons to try to reach the rescue team within half an hour when calling for help anywhere in the county. Cangxi County is located in Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province, with a total area of 2334 square kilometers and many mountain roads. It is not easy to achieve "half an hour's arrival", which requires not only sufficient personnel, but also strict discipline and perfect organizational processes.

As the captain, Yang Jun has a heavier burden on his shoulders - training and managing the team members, communicating with the headquarters and squadrons, and coordinating the relationship with the leading departments. He wanted to resign several times: "I really want to be an ordinary team member. I just need to go out for rescue and care more about my family."

However, he "dislikes the integrity of his body" and cannot let go of his team or his ideals. During the interview, he received calls from various parties from time to time, either to train the new squadron to be set up, or to prepare for the public welfare dispatch of sending the college entrance examination to the next day.

Yang Jun also occasionally thinks: "What if I had money?" But his imagination is quite different from the current young people's "dream of becoming rich". The first thing he thinks is, "If I am a rich captain, I can give more benefits to the team members, let everyone have a sense of belonging, and lead the team better."

"Can't let go" is the epitome of his great love, and it is precisely because of this great love that he was selected as one of the top ten in the "Ordinary Light Charming Drivers Selection" activity of Huolala 2024. When sharing the selected photos, he couldn't help saying: "After taking the photo for a long time, my face froze with laughter."

Yang Jun remembered that in 2019, his son sent him a long message: "Dad, I don't know why you insist on doing this rescue. It's hard and you can't earn money. What's the point of subsidizing?"

Yang Jun was stunned and didn't know how to answer. "I usually tell the team members that as long as your husband/wife doesn't scold you at home, it's a good balance." Yang Jun's wife is a volunteer in the rescue team. As for his son, he believes that time can gradually make him understand.

In the past few years, Yang Jun's son has become a volunteer in the rescue team. Perhaps it is time for young people to realize what meaning is.

Ren Liang (first from left) participates in flood rescue

These "rescue heroes" of cargo drivers are also getting younger and younger. Ren Liang, from Nanjing, is a member of the Blue Sky Rescue Team. He is a typical post-95, who has the unique magnanimity and ego of contemporary young people.

When asked why he has always insisted on public welfare rescue, Ren Liang said: He didn't think much about it, but only liked outdoor sports such as rope and diving. Participating in rescue can learn skills, get training and help others. "Mainly because I like it."

The middle-aged people have not yet left the stage, and the young people have become new and effective forces, and great love is relayed in the inheritance.

Yang Jun is cultivating a successor who can take on the "great task" of the team leader. A pair of children of Hua Mi have grown up in the rescue team. Li Tieming hopes that the rescued person can become a rescuer next time when he rescues a car. Ren Liang is the Forces nouvelles themselves. This is the meaning of "on the road". (Text/picture: Fang Ying)

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