Groom Dies on His Wedding Day After a Hospital Treats His Sore Throat as a Common Cold
A 35-year-old groom in Tongzi County, Guizhou, fell ill during his own wedding on October 3, was told he had 'a common cold' at the county hospital and put on an intravenous drip — and died during the infusion, an account his mother gave publicly as police and health regulators ordered an autopsy.
The wedding had already started when 35-year-old Mr. Xie began feeling unwell. At 1:39 p.m. on October 3, mid-celebration in Tongzi County, Guizhou, he went to the emergency department of the county people's hospital. According to his mother's public account, he had complained of a sore throat and fatigue; a doctor told him it was an ordinary cold that needed an intravenous drip. He died during the infusion. The incident was confirmed by Jimu News, whose posts on the case drew roughly 15,000 likes, and by Toutiao News, which carried the family's video statement.
The official machinery moved quickly. The county health bureau and public security have both joined the investigation; an autopsy has been commissioned by the family and the hospital; the medical file and the IV medication have been sealed pending examination. The bureau described itself as deeply pained by the death and says the cause will be announced once the autopsy concludes.
One detail has done more than any other to inflame the discussion. The family, reviewing the infusion area afterward, noticed a surveillance camera mounted above the drip chair — and asked the hospital to hand over the footage from the moment their son died. The hospital's reply, per the mother's statement: the camera had never been put into use. New浪 News's write-up of the family's account helped carry that detail to the top of the day's trending board.
That a drip should be the setting is what makes the story resonate so far beyond one county hospital. Intravenous infusion is the default treatment for minor illness across much of China — the reflex of small clinics and county ERs alike, as this site's earlier explainer on drip-first medicine describes: fevers "cured" overnight with cocktails of antibiotics and steroids, and patients who equate a bag on a stand with being taken seriously. Being told "it's just a cold, let's put you on a drip" is among the most ordinary sentences in Chinese medicine, which is precisely why this one detonated. The most-shared posts under the hashtag turned the case into a lesson, one typical comment urging readers to "take any symptom seriously — don't just tough it out" (身体不适一定要重视，不要硬扛).
Baidu's board carried the county's statement: records and drugs sealed, autopsy agreed, cause of death to follow. What the autopsy determines — whether a cold-masked infection, a cardiac event, or the infusion itself — will decide whether this stays a family's grief or becomes a case about what happens in the drip chairs where Chinese medicine does much of its routine work. For now, the file is sealed, the bags are in evidence, and the camera above the chair, as far as anyone has said, never recorded a thing.