A prominent Chinese activist has reportedly taken refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing after escaping house arrest. Chen Guangcheng, who is blind, evaded guards at his village home in Shandong province to escape undetected. A friend of Chen’s described his escape.

Hu Jia: “We talked about how Guangcheng climbed over a high wall in the middle of the night and fell over more than 200 times, and how he wounded himself when he fell down from the wall and couldn’t stand up. But he kept going and stumbled forward. And, as I remember, he said it took 20 hours to get past all these obstacles to get to the people waiting to meet him.”

The Obama administration has refused to confirm whether Chen is at the U.S. embassy, but has sent a top diplomat to China to address the case. Bob Fu, a Chinese opposition activist based in Texas, said he has confirmation Chen is under U.S. protection.

Bob Fu: “From our source who is both knowledgeable to the U.S. government and Chinese government, that we can confirm that Chen is in the protection of the U.S. government in Beijing, and the high-level negotiation between the two governments has started. And it happened on April 27th, and Chen is safe right now.”