As doubts continue to surface about the video that has gone viral over the last few days which showed passersby rush to aid a pregnant woman who collapsed in Luxun Park on Sunday, Erma Shanghai Co, the company that employs several of the people seen in the video, has now finally admitted that the video was staged. But only part of the video was staged, not all of it, and the company had no part to play in planning the video, said a spokesperson.
Via Shanghai Daily:
The two women and a man, who knew each other as colleagues of the online promotions firm Erma Co, pretended to be unacquainted passers-by and a relative of the pregnant woman to catch media attention and tell their “story,” the company said.
It still insists the incident that happened on Saturday afternoon was “real” and that the trio did help the nine-months pregnant woman. It claimed she was not an actor, but she has not surfaced publicly since the incident and the Shanghai No.1 People’s Hospital has denied accepting such a patient.
The employees faked their identities, made and uploaded the video only to “package and polish” the whole incident to make it more appealing and eye-catching, said Zhang Jun, a manager of Erma China.
The company yesterday apologized to the public for its employees’ cheating and guaranteed that they would be punished.
But Zhang claimed that the company was not behind the planning and the staging.
“They are all young people born after 1985, who may have acted without much thinking,” said Zhang. “They together made the beautiful lie probably out of good intentions, but ended up not that good.”
Disgusting.
Previously on Shanghaiist
Video: Good Samaritans coming out of the woodwork in Shanghai
Talent company accused of staging Good Samaritan video
