A toddler run over by two vans and left for dead last Thursday in Foshan, Guangdong Province, has received 270,000 yuan (US$42,320) of donations.

Wang Yue, 2, has received 270,000 yuan (US$42,320) of donations after two vans ran her over.

Wang Yue, 2, was run over by two vans last Thursday after wandering into a street in the city of Foshan, Guangdong Province.

Ignored by 18 passersby, she laid in the street for seven excruciating minutes until a "good Samaritan" street cleaner moved her off the road and helped sent her to the hospital. She remains in a coma.

Yueyue's story – and video of the tragedy caught by surveillance cameras – has spread worldwide, with journalists and bloggers from Beijing to Boston covering the accident.

The reports have sparked an outpouring of sympathy for the young girl's plight. As of yesterday, her father Wang Chichang said he had received donations totaling 270,100.45 yuan.

He also received phone calls from Chinese people in Australia and Thailand expressing their concern and willingness to provide financial help.

Kids from a kindergarten in Guangzhou donated a big box of pocket money and send a card wishing Yueyue a speedy recovery.

Yueyue's exhausted father opened a bank account yesterday to deposit all the donations. He said he would donate any extra money left after paying medical bills and other expenses to the needy.

The hit-and-run has stirred a hot debate in China about morality and the obligation to help those in need. Many Chinese are hesitant to help others for fear they will be blamed. In 2006, a man in Nanjing who helped an elderly woman to the hospital was dragged to court by her family and later forced to pay a large share of her medical bills.

The Guangdong Law Society will set up a commission to study the practice of refusing to help dying people and push for "good Samaritan" legislation, said Zhu Yongping, a lawyer at Datong Law Firm in Guangzhou.