Young boy lucky to be alive after being run over by a car

A 4-year-old boy miraculously emerged with only minor injuries after he was run over by a car on May 4 in Nanchong, southwestern China's Sichuan province. 

The surveillance video shows the boy letting go of his mother’s hand as they walked together on the crosswalk. The little boy then ran across the street at the very moment that a car began to turn right, knocking the boy to the ground and driving over his chest. The mother rushed up and tried to push the car aside with her body, but the boy independently crawled out from under the car several minutes later. 

He was then rushed to the hospital, though he appeared to have suffered only some scratches on his forehead and several soft-tissue injuries. 

But how could such a small child be run over and suffer only minor injuries?

"The car was preparing to turn right so its speed was very slow. When it hit the boy, there was a clear sign of further slowing, which greatly eased the force of the impact," explained Mo Xinchun, a Nanchong police officer.

Children's muscles and even skeletons are relatively soft and flexible, which could be another reason for the boy’s miraculous lack of serious injury, said Wei Yun, a professor at Southwest Jiaotong University. Even so, this would not count as a normal case, admitted Wei.