Although the story of his escape from abductors happened nearly three months ago, Ding Ding has become a household name in his school community.

 

Students at the People's Primary School in Chongqing Municipality, are taught, using Ding Ding's experiences, how to survive dangerous situations.

 

On January 16, Ding Ding braved the winter cold to go to school alone. While waiting for a bus at a station at 7:30 AM, a middle-aged man said that he could give the boy a free ride.

 

Before Ding Ding responded, the man used his hands to cover the boy's mouth and pushed Ding Ding into a microbus parked nearby.

 

"I knew I was abducted, for I saw a scene like it on TV," the 10-year-old boy said.

 

Placing Ding Ding under the seat in the microbus, one of the abductors asked where his parents worked and where they lived. Ding Ding pretended to be obedient and answered all their questions, for he knew that the abductors would beat him if he did not answer.

 

"I told them my father's name, but didn't tell them his right work unit," he said.

 

"I told them the residential quarter we lived, but didn't tell them the right number of our home."

 

Ding Ding was then knocked out by one of his abductors with a sleeping drug placed over this mouth.

 

When he woke up, Ding Ding found himself alone in a dark, at an unknown location, his hands tied behind his back with a rope, his eyes and mouth covered with adhesive tapes.

 

Grinding his head against an uneven wall, Ding Ding removed the tapes from his eyes and mouth and found himself in a sewer. He wanted to escape, but could not loosen the rope.

 

Suddenly he remembered what his teacher told him in a safety education class: roll on the ground until the tied hands could be raised to the side of the chest so the rope could be loosened with the teeth.

 

"I tried and succeeded," Ding Ding recalled.

 

But just as he was fleeing, Ding Ding's abductors arrived and chased him, coming within feet of nabbing him.

 

Ding Ding, realising the benefit of being small in this situation, ran through narrow tunnels in the sewer too small for his adult abductors to fit through.

 

His plan worked and soon enough he had evaded them.

 

Calling for help, nobody heard his cries, so Ding Ding, using his red socks, tied them together and hoisted them through a hole to the surface using a piece of bamboo he had found.

 

Soon enough, he heard people gather in the street above. Realising someone was trapped beneath, four workers removed the cover to the manhole, to rescue Ding Ding.

 

Curious why Ding Ding was in the sewer, they asked him lots of questions.

 

Fearing the people were accomplices of the abductors, Ding Ding remained silent.

 

But they weren't abductors, and the rescuers called the boy's mother and reported the case to police.

 

"I didn't know it was after 4 PM and that I had been abducted for nine hours," Ding Ding said.

 

When the police reunited the boy with his family two hours later, Ding Ding and his mother held each other and cried, Ding Jiquan, headmaster of the People's Primary School, told China Daily.

 

Local police are further investigating the case.

 

(China Daily April 6, 2007)