This morning, during class, I received two phone calls asking if I was alright because there was a fire in the area of my apartment building and a foreigner was hurt.
I immediately called Sandra who told me that there was nothing wrong and that she didn’t smell any smoke outside our door.
After class finished, I walked back to the apartment only to notice a crowd of people, police cars and yellow tape on the other side of the lotus pond. Asking the crowd what had happened, apparently there was a fire (the sixth floor broken window and smoke damage around it was easily visible) and a foreigner was taken to the hospital.
A couple of hours later this article popped up on the web:
German teacher dies after jumping off dormitory in central China
YICHANG, Hubei, March 11 (Xinhua) — A German woman died after apparently jumping from the seventh floor of a university staff dormitory building in central China’s Hubei Province Wednesday, police said.
The woman, believed to be aged 32, worked as an English teacher at the Yichang-based China Three Gorges University.
Her dormitory on the sixth floor caught fire at 9:30 a.m. and neighbors saw her jump from the top of the seven-story building.
A note that read “Do not resuscitate” in English was found on her body. Fire-fighters have put out the fire.
Police are investigating the cause of the death.
What a rather sobering experience. Death happens to us all. The question it begs is whether we are prepared for death when it comes.
Some rejoice and welcome death as stepping through a veil from the shadows of this world to the vibrancy of the next.
Others enter death in despair and ignorance.
Where are you?
Oh, my……that is so tragic. So sad.
Giving thanks for the faith that has been placed in my heart…..without it I would not be certain that I will rest in His arms when my time here is over.
heartbreaking. thanks for the humbling realitiy of those who we daily have contact with.