Girl loses legs to Wenchuan earthquake, wins a dream in Canada

Huang Meihua sits in the cockpit during a training session at the Imperial Canadian Flying School. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Huang Meihua is a 19-year-old girl from Southwest China's Sichuan province who will fly from the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu to Vancouver, Canada on Tuesday.

Huang will be alone during the 16-hour journey. She will spend the next four years as an international student at the University of British Columbia pursing a bachelor's degree.

Granted a full scholarship during her freshman year at UBC, Huang will mainly take courses in the humanities department and have science as her major during her sophomore year.

Huang is a double amputee who can only move with the help of a wheelchair, as her artificial legs do not suit her very well. She has overcome problems others cannot imagine to become a genuine success story.

A magnitude-8.0 earthquake whose epicenter was in Wenchuan county in Sichuan on May 12, 2008, killed 69,226 and left 17,923 missing.

The quake buried Huang in the rubble of her primary school in Beichuan county, Sichuan province, crushing the then 11-year-old's legs. She waited helplessly in a makeshift shed without medical care.

The roads were inaccessible so a military helicopter flew Huang to Chengdu where surgeons had to amputate her legs.

"How I wished I had wings to fly to safety," she said. "It is due to this experience that I have a special feeling for pilots and flying."

After her initial recovery, Huang studied in a makeshift primary school in Beichuan, earning the highest score in all of her subjects. A year after the earthquake, she started her sixth grade at the Guangya School. She was offered a free education by headmaster Qing Guangya until her graduation from its high school in 2016.

Guangya, the first private school in China, educates students who will pursue university studies in English-speaking countries. All subjects are taught in English.

"Upon entering the school, Huang didn't understand English. During her first semester, she scored 66 out of 100 in English, but she was quick-witted and studied very hard to receive a score of 98 the following semester," her teacher Yi Jing said.

"Since that second semester, she has been a top student in her class of 20 and is very good in English, biology and chemistry. When she talks with foreign teachers, she is fluent in English," Yi said.

In December, Huang applied for a pilot training program at the Imperial Canadian Flying School when it enrolled trainees from the Guangya School.

Moved by her story and enterprising spirit, the school offered her free training in Vancouver for three weeks in March, covering all her living expenses.

"One does not need feet to fly a plane. As a straight-A student most of time, I believe I can be a pilot," Huang said.

Real flights are different from the analogue machine. After training for a certain amount of time, the trainer took Huang and another trainee to a fixed wing aircraft.