Agony of Yue Yue's mother: Parents of baby ignored by 18 people after being run over is told she is brain dead
With tears in her eyes and a quivering voice, the mother of a critically injured Chinese toddler left to die in the street after she was run over twice has pleaded with her little girl to get better.
Qu Feifei, the mother of two-year-old Yue Yue - which translates as Little Joy in Chinese - was clearly in emotional agony speaking about her child who has been declared brain dead.
She said she told her girl: 'Don't give up on mum, mum is not giving up, let mum have one more chance to love and spoil you.'
She may now face the painful decision of whether to turn off the life support machine keeping her daughter alive.
The Chinese Government's state news agency Xinhua quoted doctors as saying Yue Yue 'is in a deep coma and clinically brain dead'.
The shocking incident was caught on CCTV and has stunned millions in China, with many saying their society – which has enjoyed 30 years of rapid development – is rotten and immoral.
It also sparked global outrage after more than a dozen people can be seen in the footage walking or driving past the stricken girl as she lay in the street in Foshan city, Guandong province.
Yue Yue was only moved from the road when Chen Xianmei, a street scavenger, stumbles across her.
Chen told reporters: 'I didn't think of anything at the time, I just wanted to save the girl.'
The case is quickly becoming a political issue and it is feared Communist Party officials have called for tighter controls over the reporting about the incident for fear of a public backlash.
President Hu Jintao is in his final year of office and his main policy and slogan has been to build a 'harmonious society'.
But millions are using Yue Yue's tragedy to highlight all that is wrong with modern China and claim their society is anything but harmonious.
Public anger is festering over rampant corruption in politics and business, lack of the rule of law, pollution that is seeing cancer rates soar and the widening rich-poor gap, with many of the 'spoilt' siblings of the political elite – so called princelings – being singled out for extra criticism.
Both drivers who ran over Yue Yue have been arrested, but claimed not to have seen the little girl in the 'dark' street.
Chinese media reports that one of the men had allegedly just broken up with his girlfriend and was on his mobile phone when he hit the girl.
The Shanghaiist claims one driver called Yue Yue's father to offer him money just before he was arrested.
It claims he said: 'You saw that girl on the CCTV footage, she didn't see where she was going, you know. I was on the phone when it happened, I didn't mean it. When I realised I had knocked her down, I thought I'd go down to see how she was.
'Then when I saw that she was already bleeding, I decided to just step on the gas pedal and escape seeing that nobody was around me.'
Authorities in Foshan presented Chen, who went to Yue Yue's aid, with $1,570 as a reward. Another company in the city has also offered to donate $7,500 to her family and rescuer.
Many people in China are hesitant to help people who appear to be in distress over fears they will be blamed.
High-profile law suits have ended with good Samaritans ordered to pay hefty fines to individuals they sought to help.
The incident has also sparked a series of soul-searching articles in Chinese newspapers, including the Guangzho Daily and People's Daily Online.