In 2006, a 25-year-old Fu Xuepeng had an accident when riding his motorcycle to a supermarket in Huangyan District, Taizhou, Zhejiang province. Fu's motorcycle collided head-on with a car. The accident paralyzed him from the neck down, and he hasn't been able to breathe on his own since then. Fu was diagnosed with severe damage in his central nervous system and was subsequently placed on a medical ventilator with a breathing tube inserted into his airway.

Fu Xuepeng's mother is squeezing the air ball to provide him air. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

The driver of the car was sentenced to give Fu a total of 300 thousand yuan in compensation. Fu's parents had already paid his medical bill of 1.1 million yuan, which included 700 to 800 thousand yuan borrowed from relatives. However, it cost more than ten thousand yuan per week to keep Fu on the medical ventilator. Fu's parents then were forced to take him out of the hospital because of the unbearably high medical expenses.

Fu's family then used a bag valve mask to provide him with air ever since he got home from hospital. This device requires a person to evenly squeeze the attached air ball. Fu's family squeezed the air ball 24 hours a day for more than a year, until one relative learned how to produce a homemade medical ventilator from a TV show. Fu's parents then bought an electric motor, a governor and a pushing pole attaching the device to the bag valve mask.

This is how they assembled a homemade medical ventilator for their son. However, to lower the electricity fees, Fu's parents still squeezed the device themselves during the day and only turned on the ventilator at night. They have gone through six bag valve masks in five years. Fu Xuepeng is currently still alive, but his parents' hands have now been deformed by constantly squeezing the device.

Internet users blogged about Fu and his family's condition on Weibo, and many Weibo users forwarded the post. Celebrity Weibo user Xue Manzi donated ten thousand yuan to Fu's family, and in addition set up a donation project for Fu Xuepeng. By January 26, 2013, 52681 yuan had been given to the project. Moreover, one medical institution – Beijing Kangfuzhijia Trading Co., Ltd. -- announced they would donate a medical ventilator.

An official of Huangyan District stated that the local government had already enrolled Fu's family as a low income household before the family made it onto the news, and the government had often sent staff to visit the family. Also, the local government had contacted doctors from the local hospital to examine Fu.

Meanwhile, the hospital doctors were on their way over to Zhejiang from Beijing when CCTV got in touch with them. According to the official, government staff had escorted Fu's father to the bank to open an account to receive all donations. They are said to release the bill's details to the public.