Ending up in a vegetative state might be the "best" outcome for the two-year-old girl who suffered severe brain damage after being hit by two vans and ignored by 18 passers-by last Thursday, doctors said.

Chen Xianmei(R),who have moved Wang Yue to a safe place arrived in Guangzhou and visited the poor little girl in hospital with Wang's mother.[Photo/Guangzhou Daily]

The hospital published her latest CT scan result yesterday, which showed life-threatening diffusive brain swelling. Moreover, the girl's brain stem reflexes were absent and her pupillary reaction to light disappeared yesterday.

"She didn't show any improvement today," Xie Yinlong, a media coordination official with the General Hospital of Guangzhou Military Command where the girl is treated, said yesterday.

The girl, Wang Yue, was crushed by two vans a few minutes apart last Thursday in a hardware wholesale market in Guangdong Province.

The bloody video has created a stir online and some of the indifferent passers-by have been recognized by acquaintances. Most of the 18 denied they had seen the wounded girl, except for one mother who expressed great remorse over her behavior, the Yangcheng Evening News reported yesterday.

The woman surnamed Lin said that she was a little frightened after seeing the blood and her five-year-old daughter walking with her was crying at the scene, which made her leave immediately. Lin said that she didn't know the girl had been hit by two vans and thought she just fell down when playing.

A male shopkeeper of a plumbing store was harassed this week after netizens saw him on the video walking out of his store to check the situation of the girl and then leaving. He said that his business on Taobao.com was greatly affected with lots of customers scolding him.

But he insisted that he didn't see the girl. "(I swear to the God) If I had seen the girl, I would die in your face," he said.

One man who looked back toward the girl several times after passing her collects waste from the market from time to time. He told reporters he heard the child crying but didn't see her because it was too dim. He said he rode away because he thought the sound was a child in nearby stores.

Chen Xianmei, the passer-by who came to the girl's aid about 7 minutes after the first hit, received rewards totaling 25,000 yuan (US$3,917) from the local government. She plans to donate part of the reward to the girl's family for her treatment. Chen said she didn't want to receive the reward because what she did is very ordinary in her mind.

But she was afraid that her rejection might be misunderstood by some people, who might again accuse of her trying to become famous. So she accepted the reward and offered part of it to the girl.