Zhang Dingyu, the director of Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital, led over 600 doctors and nurses to fight against COVID-19.
As Zhang worked in the battle to fight against the disease, his strange way of walking shocked his colleagues. He finally admitted that he had fallen ill with ALS (渐冻症) since October 2018 after constant inquiries. ALS is a disease that gradually blocks the connection between brain and body. People with ALS become partially paralyzed (瘫痪的) leading to respiratory (呼吸系统的) failure. While working with handicapped (瘸的) legs, his wife was confirmed to get infected with SARS-CoV-2 after working in another hospital. The bad news brought him to his knees, and he cried for the first time after the outbreak of COVID-19. Zhang could only spare time to visit his wife until three days after she got admitted to the hospital. Even then he could only stay for 30 minutes. Fortunately, the good news came that his wife had recovered ten days after treatment.
Zhang, 57, had offered medical services along with Chinese medical teams to Algeria and Pakistan. Three days after the earthquake hit Sichuan Province in 2008, Zhang entered the city with his medical team members to offer help.
"Life is always short. I need to do more to finish the things that I might leave behind. Then I would leave without too many regrets, " Zhang said. "We are at the center of a storm, so we need to give all we have to protect our city, and our Wuhan people, " Zhang said.
