By Xie Fang (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-31 07:55

CHENGDU -- When the first rescue chopper came for Liu Dairong, who was unscathed by the May 12 earthquake, about two weeks ago, she refused to get onboard. She didn't have the heart to leave her husband Xie Dehua, whose arm and leg were injured in the disaster, alone on the mountainside in Chengqiangyan city, Guangyuan county, where the couple worked as miners.

The power of their love deeply touched rescuers, who airlifted the couple to safety on Friday morning.

"I think she is great, because she didn't leave her partner when the situation was so dangerous," Tsoi Tak Man, a winch operator from the Hong Kong special administrative region government's flight service, said.

Tsoi was among the four Hong Kong rescuers and five PLA soldiers who brought the couple to safety, and he is ready to share their story.

Liu had told the first group of rescuers: "If we have to die, I wish to die with my husband." In the following days, she kept her husband in good company, scavenging for airdropped food to feed Xie and cleaning his wounds with liquor.

Neither of them had any idea when the next rescue team would come, but they encouraged each other to never give up hope.

Tsoi said rescuers had discovered the couple a few days ago, but weather conditions made it impossible to fly near the 2,200-m-tall mountain. They had to wait for clear skies.

When the team did depart to save the couple, they had to use a winch to deploy the soldiers to the scene, as the mountainside was too steep to land the chopper.

On the ground, rescuers provided Xie with basic medical treatment before winching him aboard the helicopter.

The whole operation lasted only half an hour.

Onboard, a sobbing Liu was so excited that she was speechless.

Her elation grew as the chopper flew over Qingping county, and she looked down to see the couple's house was still standing.

On arriving at the county's temporary airport, Liu encountered her father-in-law, who had gone to the airport to wait every day in hopes of a miracle since losing contact with the couple after the quake.

Due to load limits, Xie's father was unable to board the chopper, which was bound for another city where it would pick up several patients.

But the brief family reunion was an emotional and memorable moment for everyone present.