Cao Yu is a 22-year old auxiliary policewoman with the Xixiu branch of Anshun City Public Security Bureau in southwest China's Guizhou province. Confronted by a thug's knife, she chose to tackle him without any hesitation and was stabbed several times as a result.

Citizens of Anshun crowded to visit her in hospital, and sent flowers and good wishes. Although still hospitalized, Cao Yu is now out of danger.

At about 1 p.m. on April 3, 2015, Cao Yu ended her lunch break and went out on patrol in Tashan Plaza as usual. Attracted by a yelling crowd, she found a man in his twenties waving a 60cm knife at people around him. Cao Yu approached him at once and called on him to give himself up. Instead he attacked her aggressively with his knife. Cao Yu was stabbed in the left shoulder. Bleeding, but seeing that the man was about to rush at the crowd with the knife, Cao Yu confronted him, grappled with him, and tried to take away his weapon. The deranged thug stabbed Cao Yu again.

During a 5-minute life-and-death struggle, Cao Yu was stabbed five times - once on the left shoulder, three times on the left hand, and once on the right hand. She was bathed in blood.

Jiao Chun, one of the policemen who arrived on the scene immediately after receiving an emergency call, said: "When we arrived, Cao Yu was bleeding all over, but she was still holding the thug tightly."

Cao Yu did not release her grip, despite her badly wounded hands, until reinforcements arrived.

Lying on her hospital bed, Cao Yu smiled and said: "I didn't think much. I couldn't just let the man hurt innocent people."

Cao Yu is a local of Anshun city. She started work as an auxiliary policewoman last October.