A female sanitation worker was beaten last month after she accidentally splashed a passerby with dirty water.
The worker, Ye Fuying, was attempting to clean out a street puddle near a Sichuan province market on the morning of Feb. 28 when she splashed water on a nearby woman, reported the People’s Daily Online (via Daily Mail).
“I was cleaning near a puddle, there were a few pieces of discarded leaves so I used a broom to get them out,” Ye recalled to the People’s Daily.
“I forced it a little bit too much next to a middle-aged women doing grocery shopping and I splashed her. She was angry that I got mud on her.”
Ye said she immediately apologized to the woman and explained to her that it had been an accident. The woman left after admonishing Ye for the mishap.
She continued her street cleaning when she saw the woman and two accompanying men walk towards her.
According to Ye, the woman pointed at her and the two men rushed at her. The younger man slapped her in the face.
“I felt dizzy and fell to the ground, they then started kicking me when I was on the floor,” she told the People’s Daily. “The angry woman also started kicking me.”
The police eventually arrived, but the woman and the two men had already left the scene. Ye was taken to a hospital with heavy bruising on her face.
According to Tencent (via Shanghaiist), the two men have been identified as the woman’s husband and son. The son was detained for eight days and forced to pay a 400 yuan ($61) fine for the assault.
