Working more than 20 years as a firefighter and rescuer, 41 year-old Chen Jian has been through a lot. He was in the rescue mission for the deadly Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 in Sichuan. He was also part of the team sent to deal with the deadly chemical explosion in Tianjin in 2015.

Chen Jian, a 41 year-old firefighter and rescuer of Wuhan. [Photo/CGTN]

He has been in fires, floods and capsized ships. He told CGTN that confronting danger is what his line of work entails and he has gotten used to it, but the 2020 outbreak of coronavirus in Wuhan was different – it was the most challenging task he ever encountered.

In January last year, Wuhan, a city for about 11 million residents, was put under a complete lockdown. In the state of emergency, Chen and his rescue team had known they would definitely be called to duty.

They were then asked to shuttle COVID-19 patients and transfer hazardous medical waste. Chen said it was natural to be afraid, but what really made him fearful was a scene he could never imagine until he saw.

"When we drove through Wuhan after the city was locked down and saw no one, not a single car on the roads in this big city. That was scary," he told CGTN.

During the lockdown, all residents of Wuhan were asked to stay at home. As for those medical staffs, teams like Chen's would shuttle them to their hospitals. Chen said that altogether, he had shuttled over 500 patients and moved more than 2,000 barrels of medical waste.

And in those journeys, he had some close calls with the coronavirus.

"My hazmat suits ripped twice. I was once accidentally pricked on my finger by a used needle," Chen recalled. "At that time, I thought if the worst happens to me, what would happen to my parents, my wife and kid?"

"I was really fretting too much. But this is our work. We have pledged ourselves, so we must do and finish it," Chen added.

Thankfully, he was not infected. Since then, he decided to exercise more and drink more milk to "be strong for my team and my family." He also started to take notes of what was happening in the city and eventually these notes were put together in a booklet of "The Fight against COVID 19."

"The fight against COVID 19 was the biggest fight of our careers. For me and for our team. We gave the best of ourselves," he said.

Doctors and nurses on the frontline were the few people outside his colleagues that Chen interacted with during the lockdown months.

"The doctors would say, 'Thank you, if not for you, we would have been overwhelmed by the work,'" Chen remembered, adding that it was such remarks from patients and doctors that gave him strength.

"As a CPC member, we always step forward and stand up despite fear. We lead. We take people's welfare to heart and serve them wholeheartedly," Chen said.