Mainland labour activist He Xiaobo, who lost three fingers in an industrial accident in Foshan in 2006, said Ou's story was typical of the millions of migrant workers who had been disabled in cities in Guangdong in more than three decades of economic reform and opening up.
"Among them, Dongguan and Foshan have the most cases of serious industrial injury," He said. "There are huge surgical departments, especially for hand and arm reattachment surgery, at every township hospital in Dongguan."
He estimated at least 50,000 serious industrial injuries occurred in Foshan every year, more than triple the number acknowledged by the authorities.
Liu Kaiming , director of the Shenzhen-based Institute of Contemporary Observation, said his research suggested that as many as 60,000 of the province's 30 million migrant workers were disabled by industrial accidents every year