BEIJING: Every time Chen Suzhen returns home after a rescue mission, she retreats into her tiny home sauna for a good sweat session. “Rescue work is dangerous. Whenever I get back home, I pour myself a cup of tea and just try to relax,” she said.
The 58-year-old is captain of the Fujian Blue Sky Rescue (BSR) Disaster Reduction Center General Team and founder of Xiamen BSR, a volunteer organization established in 2009.
Chen was born in Xiamen, Fujian Province, a coastal city in southeast China. Before setting up the Xiamen BSR, she had been a businesswoman selling water purifiers and a tea sommelier who loved making tea, planting flowers, writing poems and traveling. “I used to live in peace and plenty,” Chen told Beijing Review.
The 8.0-magnitude Wenchuan earthquake that hit Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008, dramatically changed her life. “It broke my heart when I saw the debris on TV. And I wanted to do something for the victims,” Chen said. Not even giving it a second thought, she bought a ticket and flew to Wenchuan County. However, when she arrived in the quake-stricken area, Chen found there wasn’t much she could do. “I didn’t know how to save lives. The only thing I could do was to take care of the injured and deliver supplies together with other volunteers,” she said.
It was her first time being surrounded by so much death, an undoubtedly shocking and emotionally draining experience.
“My heart was filled with sorrow, rather than fear. I figured I should do something for the victims,” she said.
After she came back, Chen established the Xiamen BSR. Her nickname is “waterweed,” after her favorite aquatic plant which she deems a symbol of resilience. “Everyone calls me Captain Waterweed,” she said.
However, running a rescue team is no easy feat. “We started from scratch and things were difficult at the beginning,” Chen said. She and her team members had to master a wide range of skills, from rock climbing and driving assault boats, which are inflatable rubber boats used in combat and rescue operations, to scuba diving. They also had to study for the national-level emergency rescue certification exam. “While carrying out rescue operations, I once broke three teeth and nearly fell off a cliff,” Chen added.
Many people, including her ex-husband, simply didn’t understand her. Some even laughed at her, saying, “What can a little woman possibly do?”
Chen admitted that men are usually physically stronger than women. “But I am a woman of surprising stamina,” she said. Chen and her team took part in a weeklong disaster relief mission in central China’s Henan Province in July 2021, when torrential rains hit the region and caused severe flooding. “We were rushed off our feet. I barely slept and ate very little. However, I felt energetic and was able to remain super calm all week,” she said.
And when the pressure is on, her memory serves her very well. During the rescue mission following the 2014 Ludian earthquake in Yunnan Province, she recited roughly a dozen locals’ 11-digit mobile phone numbers.
Being petite can sometimes prove an advantage in the field. During the 2015 Nepal earthquake, a villager came to Chen for help and took her to his house. The building had collapsed and the only way to enter it was through a narrow hole. His wife was trapped inside. “My team members and the Nepalese soldiers were all big and tall men. I was the smallest person there,” Chen said.
Chen was the ideal person to go into the tight space. “It was horrible inside,” Chen recalled. As she made her way through the rubble, she kept digging and clearing the passage to make it wider, one inch at a time, and eventually, she found the trapped woman. She eventually managed to get the victim out, with help from her team members and Nepalese soldiers.
On the last day of their mission, the rescued woman, in a wheelchair, approached Chen’s team and said, “You saved me. Thank you, China! Thank you, Blue Sky.”
–The Daily Mail-Beijing review news exchange item
