Protect today's Good Samaritans

A former editor of China Daily limped into my office the other day. He told me he slipped and fell on an icy street in early March, after one of the many snowstorms that graced Beijing this winter.

"No one came to my rescue," he said ruefully. "They were afraid I'd blame them for my fall."

His story has become a familiar one, unfortunately. On Monday, Wang Yi, a reporter from Yantai Media Group, got a phone call from a Mrs Liu, saying that an elderly woman had fallen on the ground. "She has tried to get up by herself, holding onto something with one hand and supporting her body with the other, but she can't do it," Mrs Liu said.