Foshan toddler Yueyue still under intensive care

Doctors earlier declared Yueyue "brain dead" and said she would most likely remain in a vegetative state. // Photo via China Daily

Earlier media reports that Yueyue, the toddler who was knocked down by two vehicles outside a market in Foshan, has passed away have turned out to be false.

Yueyue's mother has appeared on Sina Weibo herself to clarify the situation. She said that while Yueyue was still unable to breathe on her own, her situation has stabilised, and she has regained some sensation in her limbs. Doctors say that her chances of recovery are now better than earlier estimated.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Yueyue's father lamented, “What’s up with people these days? They make so many excuses to turn a blind eye. The society is so indifferent, so heartless.”

His only hope now though is for his child's survival. “Yueyue is so lovely, often amuses us. Sometime if I quarrelled with her mother and if her mother cried, she would tell us not to cry, she always tried to amuse us. I don’t have any thoughts now, I just hope my child will wake up and call me Dad again,” he said.

Meanwhile, the first driver who knocked down Yueyue has also been apprehended by the police. Chinese media reports say he had just broken up with his girlfriend and was on his cell phone when he hit the girl.

He had called Yueyue's father to say he would never surrender, and that he could give him some money if that was what he wished. When a journalist called (tune in to the call below), he revealed that he was planning to escape to Xinjiang.

"You saw that girl on the CCTV footage, she didn't see where she was going, you know. I was on the phone when it happened, I didn't mean it," he said. "When I realised I had knocked her down, I thought I'd go down to see how she was. Then when I saw that she was already bleeding, I decided to just step on the gas pedal and escape seeing that nobody was around me."

"If she is dead, I may pay only about 20,000 yuan ($3,125). But if she is injured, it may cost me hundreds of thousands yuan," he added.

UPDATE: Meet: Chen Xianmei, the trash collector who came to the rescue of Foshan toddler Yueyue
UPDATE 2: Adam Minter: Chen Xianmei's a "scrap peddler" not "trash collector"
UPDATE 3: Will a belief in God make more Good Samaritans out of us?
UPDATE 4: Chen Xianmei commended while murmurs abound she's out to get famous
UPDATE 5: Little Yueyue has passed away.

Previously on Shanghaiist
1. Watch: Toddler run over by two vehicles, ignored by all but one trash collector
2. Foshan toddler passes away [UPDATE: Toddler still alive]