Under the Wheels

Medics rushed Pham Dang Hieu, blood seeping from his crushed skull and his panicked family trailing, into the emergency room of Hanoi's Viet Duc University Hospital at 9:30 on a Sunday evening. The 27-year-old engineer had swerved his 100cc Honda Wave motorcycle to avoid a bicycle and crashed into a concrete lane divider near his home. His bleary-eyed brother stared blankly at the widening pool of blood on the sheet beneath Hieu's head as the doctor explained the family's options: hook him up to life support, or take him home to die. Either way, he would never wake...