The delivery rider died unexpectedly while delivering takeout, and relatives donated their organs to save 4 people
His name is Lu Jichun, a 51-year-old food delivery rider from Hangzhou, Hunan Province. He has no father, mother, wife and children, and only delivers food in Hangzhou with three nephews. Late last month, he had an accident while delivering food, which caused brain death.
At the last moment, relatives made a difficult decision to donate all his "life-saving organs" – heart, liver, and kidneys. His life began to continue in the four strangers.
The operating room suddenly quieted down, leaving only the dripping sound of the vital signs monitor. The shadowless lamp illuminated the 51-year-old Lu Jichun’s face, which was dark, rough, and had obvious color differences on his body, which were traces of sunlight and wind and frost. He lay quietly, as if he was rushing to finish a day of takeout and needed a long rest.
This is the final story of his life, and we have recorded them one by one.
Last Goodbye
Healthcare workers stood in two lines, bowing their heads in silence.
"Time of death, [August 7] 8:56," Hu Yinghong, director of the Department of Brain Critical Care Medicine of the Second Zhejiang Medical Hospital, announced.
The fresh and warm hope will replace Lu Jichun in a race against time. The cornea is moved into the eye bank, and then, in a few hours, his organs flow to four patients in the next operating rooms –
A 61-year-old uremic patient was found to have elevated creatinine for 6 years and hemodialysis for 2 years.
A patient with renal insufficiency who started dialysis in November last year was only 32 years old.
A 52-year-old aunt, hepatitis B cirrhosis for more than ten years, ascites, lower limb edema made her miserable;
A 61-year-old aunt, whose family had planned to give up a heart transplant, finally decided to take a gamble at 9 p.m. on the 6th. "Otherwise, my mother would only have a few months to live," her daughter said in tears.
Before being pushed into the operating room, on the morning of the 7th, less than 8 o’clock, more than 20 relatives came to bid farewell to Lu Jichun. There were only a few minutes left to meet. Some people leaned against Lu Jichun’s bed and sobbed; some people called Lao Lu’s name softly, as if exhorting or confiding. A few juniors gathered outside the ward to comfort the elderly.
On the afternoon of the 7th, Lu Jichun’s body was cremated at the Hangzhou Funeral Home. At midnight yesterday, the spirit car carried his ashes and rushed to his hometown, Pingcha Town, Hunan, thousands of miles away.
The Gift of Life
On the evening of July 23, during the evening rush hour, Lu Jichun, who was driving westward on an electric bicycle and rushing to deliver flowers and egg buns, suddenly fell alone on the east motorway at the intersection of Wenyi West Road and Gudun Road, causing severe craniocerebral injury.
In addition to three nephews and nieces who delivered food in Hangzhou like Lu Jichun, more than 20 relatives came from their hometown in Hunan and other places. The Lu family consulted brain surgeons in several hospitals, and the final results were disappointing. They visited Lu Jichun every day, talked to him, touched him, "Why did this happen to you?" Tears fell on his arm.
From the doctor’s mouth, the family members were persuaded to donate organs. This term, which had been heard before, suddenly came like the bad news of Lu Jichun’s death.
Generally speaking, brain-dead patients have higher organ quality than heart-dead patients. This is a gift of life, said Ling Hui, the organ donation coordinator of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Zhejiang Province and the organ tissue acquisition office of the Second Zhejiang Medical Hospital. Subconsciously, the sisters’ hearts skipped a beat. They didn’t want Lu Jichun to suffer more on his last journey.
In 2018, China’s organ donation rate of one million people reached 6.8%. This figure is already 226 times higher than in 2010, but it is still in short supply due to technical barriers, traditional concepts, and talent gaps. In the popular sense, people think that donation means lofty; but to some extent, lofty is also a "NIMBY effect": people will praise and respect in their mouth, but make a dash in their heart – it is best for others to complete this lofty. In Ling Hui’s past experience, failure and cold eyes are the norm.
Relatives’ decision
Lu Jichun’s life was re-examined on the scales. At the age of 51, he had experienced the loss of his father and mother, and he had not even been able to have a marriage and was alone. Because of the short age and long loneliness, it made people feel even more unwilling and worthless at this moment.
How does an ordinary person prove that he has lived in the world? Very few people will write books and praise ordinary people. What ordinary people leave behind in the end may be a tombstone, a child, and some photos. Obviously, their names will eventually be erased, and it is very difficult to fight against oblivion.
Organ and tissue donation, for now, looks like the best continuation, "as if his eyes are still blinking and his heart is still beating," said Lu Suzhen, the fourth sister, even if she doesn’t know who it is or where she lives.
Behind the recipient was a family. The family thought that, to some extent, those families were like Lu Jichun’s "family". Those healthy bodies would replace him and give him the warmth he had never had before.
As expected, his niece Chen Xiaodi, who was closest to him, cried the most. Someone said at the top of his voice, "Uncle is dead, can’t you let him be selfish?!"
"If he was still sober and knew that his organs could save people, he would have made the same decision," Ms. Lu said, as a family with the same feelings but the opposite ideas reached a hard-won consensus on organ donation.
Chen Xiaodi finally said with a hard heart, you decide, I neither support nor oppose it.
Ling Hui explained the process, she hid in the next room and couldn’t come out. Vaguely heard inside, Lu Suzhen asked in a trembling voice, "After you take the organs, can you sew them better?" Ling Hui quickly said, "No problem, we will return him to you cleanly."
Hu Yinghong said that after a patient’s brain death, if the heart, kidneys, liver, cornea and other organs and tissues are well maintained, the patient and his family can donate organs for transplantation if they are completely voluntary. When the life cycle switches, when healthcare workers bow in silence in front of Lu Jichun’s body, next door, the red light is on "during the operation", the recipient enters the state of anesthesia, and everything is ready.
Just as Lu Jichun ran hard for a takeout to be delivered on time, doctors are also people who race against time. There is no obvious watershed between the height of life and the intensity of life.
Just like a river hugging another river, one life died, but soon flowed to four other lives. They will replace Lu Jichun and live well.
The last takeaway order that was not delivered
Another ordinary, non-stop weekday evening peak. On July 23rd, the solar term was hot, and in the evening, the road surface vented the last power of the high temperature, and the sunset and street lamps gradually released brilliance. The takeaway order showed that at 17:33, Lu Jichun clicked on the meal and set off from Luojiazhuang. He was holding a bouquet of flowers for 78 yuan, with bright red roses and snow-white lilies; another egg-packed rice for 40.8 yuan was golden and hot.
Four minutes later, Lu Jichun, who was riding an electric bicycle to the west, suddenly fell alone in the east motorway at the intersection of Wenyi West Road and Gudun Road, causing severe craniocerebral injury.
He failed to deliver the last takeaway order.
This was originally a rushed and ordinary day for him.
On July 23rd, in a rented house in Chengzhong Village, west of the city, around 2 am, in the dim, Sun Chen, who was sleeping on the bottom bunk, heard that his uncle was back. Next, the water boiled; the tin foil of the packaging bags and material bags was torn open; the tempting smell of essence and taste nucleotide disodium rose in the air, and Lu Jichun sucked instant noodles.
"How was the order today?" Sun Chen asked. Uncle reported a figure of nearly 40. This is not surprising. 38 orders a day – 40 orders, which is the target set by Lu Jichun for himself.
Different riders had different levels, from bronze to king, and the level in the game determined the real income of the riders. The level was updated every week, and the only way to improve was to keep receiving orders, plus 1 point for each order, while the knight of the king needed to complete nearly 400 orders within a week. In sharp contrast to the only bonus points, there were various points reduction rules: 3 points for overtime delivery, 5 points for bad reviews, 10 points for cancellation of delivery…
Lu Jichun usually left the house at 10 a.m. and stayed busy until one or two in the morning. He had also delivered breakfast, but his body was quickly overwhelmed. During a break before the evening rush hour, he would find time to go home and stir-fry a dish, usually chili fried meat, dig up a large spoonful of hot sauce, and spread out some for the early morning "dinner", and then replace the car with a new battery.
The food delivery industry seems to embrace everyone. It doesn’t ask about academic qualifications, gender, just a battery car, a health certificate. It also seems to be a passport to the city. It also means more freedom and income than industrial assembly lines.
Lu Jichun’s niece, Chen Xiaodi, first came to Hangzhou to study sewing. At the peak of the afternoon, she also ran takeout to earn extra money. At the beginning of the year, Sun Chen, who was running takeout in Fujian, came to Hangzhou and rented with his uncle. Together with his nephew Chen Yang in Hangzhou, a "takeaway family" of four people was formed.
According to platform data, 85% of riders in Hangzhou are from rural areas; 7% of riders are women, many of whom are the backbone of a family.
The average age of this group is 29 years old. (Reporter, Huang Xiaoxing, Yu Renfei, Correspondent, Fang Xuwen/Photo)
(At the request of the interviewee, except for Lu Jichun and healthcare workers, the family members are all pseudonyms; some privacy information is blurred)
