'Would have frozen to death if…': Mother of 2 trapped in -20°C freezer, rescued by delivery rider in China

What began as another ordinary evening at a cold-storage facility in central China’s Hunan province nearly turned into a tragedy when a 39-year-old woman found herself trapped inside a freezer set at minus 20°C.

With no phone, no winter clothing, and no one around to hear her cries, she thought she would never make it out alive, until a delivery rider happened to pass by.

Trapped with no way out
The woman, surnamed Chen, was arranging goods alone on August 31 when she made a small but costly mistake. Instead of using the smaller safety door, she fully opened the freezer’s main door to move boxes. Once inside, she closed it tightly to protect the goods from moisture. When she tried to leave, the door wouldn’t open, and the backup switch had already failed.

Wearing only light summer clothes, Chen felt the freezing air claw at her body. The heavily insulated 20-square-metre freezer muffled sound, making it almost impossible for her cries to reach anyone outside.

Desperate fight for survival
“I thought of my children, one in secondary school and one only five,” Chen later said. “That was my biggest fear, that I wouldn’t see them again.”

She slammed a box of frozen dumplings against the door until her arms gave out. Growing weaker, she resorted to banging her slipper against the door whenever she sensed movement. Time felt endless as her body began to shiver uncontrollably.

The unlikely hero
Then came Liu Xu, a delivery rider whose job had trained him to be alert to unusual sounds. “I heard faint knocking and thought something wasn’t right,” he recalled. Following the sound, he discovered Chen locked inside. By then, she had already spent nearly 20 minutes in the freezer and was barely able to stand. It took her two hours to recover from the ordeal.

A life-saving rescue
Overwhelmed with gratitude, Chen later presented Liu with flowers, food, gift money, and a red pennant, a traditional symbol of appreciation in China. She even offered him a stake in her company. “I would definitely have frozen to death if no one had heard me,” she admitted.

Lessons and reactions
Chen has since vowed to repair the faulty freezer and reminded others about the importance of safety checks. Her story quickly went viral, sparking emotional responses online. “Not only was Chen’s life saved, her family’s happiness was too,” one commenter wrote. Another warned: “People might not be so lucky every time.”

For Chen, it was a terrifying brush with death. For Liu Xu, it was a simple act of attentiveness. Together, it became a story of survival, chance, and a hero who arrived just in time.