55-year-old Yu Lianhua will never forget the five days she spent treating the victims injured in the Sichuan earthquake.

When the 8.0 magnitude earthquake shook Wenchuan at 2:28 p.m. on May 12, Yu didn't even feel it thousand miles away. It wasn't until that evening that she saw the terrible news of the quake on the television in her Tangshan home.

55-year-old Yu Lianhua (L) and her daughter Li Li (R) (Photo by CRIENGLISH.com/ Xu Liuliu)

At that time, she made up her mind to do her duty and provide medical service for the injured survivors. But she didn't tell her family. The next morning, she held a meeting in her private hospital, discussing suitable medical services for the disaster zone. As the principal practitioner, Yu decided to drive to Mianyang, near the hardest-hit Beichuan County, to treat the quake victims with other doctors.

"At the meeting, everyone was passionate about providing medical service. We are Tangshaners who went through the pain of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. We wanted to help. We collected all the supplies in our hospital, including liquid antiseptic, bandages and suturing packages. We even replaced the professional driver with a doctor who had a driver's license in order to help more after our arrival."

After nearly 50 hours of constant driving, they arrived in Mianyang at 3 o'clock on the morning of May 15. They are shocked by the scene before them. Government buildings and schools were buried. Rows of apartment buildings had dropped to the ground. Collapsed houses were everywhere. The city had collapsed.

Large-scale relief work was already underway. Survivors from Beichuan had been transferred to Mianyang, where the Jiuzhou Gymnasium served as a temporary home for more than 30,000 people. Yu and her team were assigned to serve as a medical group providing preliminary treatment for victims. There were so many injured that Yu and her partners had no time to rest. At last, local officials advised them to have a nap. Without quilts, they just rested on broken chairs outside the gym. They were awakened by a heavy rain and rushed into gym to continue their jobs.

On May 16, Yu had a brush with death when she accompanied army rescuers to treat new survivors in mountainous Beichuan. They had successfully saved three residents from the ruins by afternoon, when suddenly the assembly order sounded. They needed to evacuate immediately to higher ground, before the area where they stood was flooded by a quake lake.

Yu, at 55 years old, couldn't catch up with the others and gradually fell behind. Nearby soldiers encouraged her, telling her, "You must run right now." They reached a dam that stood three meters high, providing a safe shelter for rescue team. But Yu couldn't climb it on her own. The rescue team helped her again and lifted her up. Minutes later, she saw the spot in which she had just stood flooded by silent water.

At the time, she says she feared that she would never see her family again. She hadn't told her husband and daughter of her plans before setting out. When they got outside of Hebei, she called her husband and told him that she was on the way to Sichuan. The other end was silent for a while. Then he told her to take care of herself and do what she could for the victims.