'Had they got to me an hour later I would have been dead'

"When the first helicopters arrived, they were rushed by hundreds of people wanting injured relatives to be treated urgently," Ma says."

A soldier eventually accompanied Ma to Huaxi Hospital, the largest clinic in Chengdu.

As she lay in hospital, Ma's daughter, a high school student, became increasingly desperate after hearing rumors that her mother had succumbed to her injuries.

She refused to eat or drink, Ma says, and tried to take her own life.

Her teacher and school friends rallied around her, and she regained a certain degree of composure, but, perhaps inevitably, she failed her college entrance examination.

Ma says that only after two years did she fully recover from her own physical injuries, but she bore many mental and emotional scars, too, and only with the help of relatives, friends and mental health professionals, did she finally regain full health.

A year later her daughter sat the college entrance exam again and passed, and she was admitted to Southwest Petroleum University in Chengdu.

Ma says she is now happy with life, her two daughters having found good jobs and her family having recently opened a hostel. Running the family business and taking care of her grandson keeps her extremely busy, she says.

Yet Ma and other survivors regularly band together to visit elderly people whose children died in the earthquake. She finds chatting with them and helping them with household chores fulfilling.

"I received a lot of generous help from people throughout the country, and am extremely grateful for that. Spending time (with those who were less fortunate than me) is the least I can do."