Firefighter designated martyr for sacrificing his life saving a two-year-old girl

The political department of the Ministry of Public Security has designated firefighter Yang Kezhang a martyr and awarded him a golden medal on June 1, 2015.

On the morning of May 30, 2015, Yang Kezhang died in a rescue mission in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. The firefighting team rushed into a blazing residential building in Yulin city and saved three people who were trapped.

Yang Kezhang, 27, political instructor of a local fire squadron, and his colleagues found the trapped residents at 12:02 a.m. on May 30, 2015.

Yang held the two-year-old girl in his arms and tried to take her out of the building.

"You don't need to come upstairs. I will use the safety rope to protect her," Yang said to his colleagues from a balcony of the building.

However, Yang fell from the building because of poor visibility at the scene at 1:13 a.m.

Yang died from serious injuries at 5:23 a.m. in a local hospital. But the girl in his arms was saved after medical treatment.

The girl's mother and brother were also saved.