Li Shushu lies in bed at hospital in Foshan, Guangdong province, on July 4. Dai Jiaxin / for China Daily
A 16-year-old girl is being hailed a hero after she was badly injured while trying to save a baby from being hit by a truck.
Li Shushu lost the skin on her right foot as she dived to push Zeng Siwen, 1, out of the path of an oncoming truck on a road in Foshan, Guangdong province.
The child suffered serious injuries to her legs, and they may have to be amputated.
Doctors said Li and Zeng are both in a stable condition, but face lengthy recoveries. Police are investigating whether the driver of the truck was speeding.
Li refused to discuss the accident on Sunday, saying previous media reports had exaggerated the incident.
"I don't want to talk about it any more. What I did was not a big deal," she said from her hospital bed at the Foshan No 1 People's Hospital, shortly after undergoing her second operation. "The media should stop reporting the incident. I just want to have a good rest and recover."
According to previous reports, Li, a migrant worker from Zhanjiang, also in Guangdong, was visiting a friend at a restaurant in the city's Shunde district on July 2 when she offered to take the owners' daughter, Zeng, to buy candy at a store across the road.
Yangcheng Evening News last week quoted Li as saying the baby pulled away from her hand and ran into the road, right into the path of an oncoming truck.
Diving to save the child was a "subconscious reaction", Li said in the report. "I thought the truck would stop after hitting me, but it still ran over Zeng."
Zuo Zhongnan, chief physician of hand and foot plastic surgery at the hospital, said Li will need several skin grafts and it could be at least three months before she can walk again.
The hospital said it is treating her for free at the moment.
"It's boring to lie in bed all day, every day. I want to walk as soon as possible," Li told China Daily. She said despite her injury she still thinks it was the right thing to do. "Although I suffered a foot injury, I saved the girl's life."
