Saturday, April 28, 2012

BERSIH 3.0 REPORT FROM THE MEDIC ANGLE.


I am safely home. It was a very interesting day. I am however very sad that not all of us out there this afternoon, return home safely. I man died. That is one death too many. I also hear that 200+ were arrested and taken to Pupalol Police School.
As shown in the above picture, my team and I had just set up our medical base at one end of Jln Sultan, where we were assigned too. We are very thankful to the owner of Kwong Fook Wing, 51, jln Sultan, for giving us permission to use his premises as a medical station. He also allowed us unrestricted use of his loo. There are still caring rakyat out there. We arrived at Jln Sultan at about 10.30am without much difficulty. I must say that the crowd at Jln Sultan, at about 11am was about 30-40K ( as far as the eye could see on either end of Jln Sultan, walking 10 abreast ). We were rather leaderless as our VIP never reached us, and the Unit Amalan also never reached me. There were a few young DAP security people helping move the crowd, but it looked like they were not in touch with HQ in Jln Raja Laut, and so had poor leadership to control the crowd.. To add to the confusion, our walkie talkies, which was our planned modee of communication failed, and all of us could not communicate with HQ in Jln Raja Laut. Of course, our handphones were also not functioning. We can speculate whether it was jammed or sabotaged.
Anyway, by about 12.30pm they decided that we should move towards Datarn Merdeka via Jln HS Lee and Jln Yap Ah Loy.
We followed behind the main group. Up to this point, everything was jolly and almost boring. In fact my team was saying that they were rather bored and was looking for "action".
At Jln Yap Ah Loy, we sat out our temporary base camp in the 5 foot way of Maybank opp MS Ally. Everything was still peaceful and boring. Thw walkie talkie also began to work, and I could communicate with HQ. It was now that I heard that Datuk Hj Awang ( PAS President ) was unwell and was on way to HKL by ambulance.




At about 3pm ( I think. Not exactly sure ) all hell broke loose. I am not sure why. From Maybank, Jln Yap Ah Loy, I could see people running towards me from the Dataran Mederka end.. Then I could hear the popping of the teargas gun. I run as far as my artificial left hip could carry me, when into smaller lane and hid in a Sport Toto shop, and the many of us there, convince the clerk to shut the shutters. We could still hear  teargas popping outside . The tear gas was very thick.After all was quiet for about 5 mins, I told the clerk that I must get back on duty. When the shutters opened, the air was still thick with teargas.
As I walk towards Jln Tun Perak, tying to regroup, the police chase us and fired more tear gas. While I was running for safety, a Chinese man tapped me and asked for help. His wife was bleeding badly from an open wound in the right temple of her scalp. He said that she had been hit by a tear gas cannister. I asked her to lie down, as I tried to examined the wound. I could see a severe spurter ( ? arterial bleed ). As I was examining, I could hear popping and they were still firing tear gas and there I was with my Medic Vest. It meant nothing to them. I asked the husband to help me half carry her to another small side road behind Kota Raya, lie her on the hawker table and attended to her wound, It was obvious that she needed hospital attention. I radioed for help, but after 10 mins, I could hear almost mayhem over the walkie talkie. I asked my team to help me bandaged her scalp wound with pressure bandage, hail down a passing Honda Accord. The driver was kind enough to agree , and send her to Tung Shin Hospital 5 mins away, with one of my doctors and the husband.
There after, I had to attend to another tear gas cannister scalp injury. This was minor. An obese man developed severe asthma ? exertional running ? tear gas allergy, and my team had to attend to him. Also stailised him and send him by private car to Tung Shin hospital.
This is basically the medical report of Medic 3, Bersih 3.0.

I dismissed my group at about 5pm and I left at about 5.15pm. I understand that there were still people at Dataran Merdeka and Sogo, but we were too far and cut off by FRU to be able to help them.

I am very sad that someone died and did not get to come home as I did. All he wanted, like me, was to have a clean free and fair election. It sure looked like the police were more  brutal this year. Why shoot tear gas into Jln Yap Ah Loy when we were so far from dataran Merdeka? Why shoot at us when we were obviously attending to some one on the ground? Why are there so many tear gas cannister scalp injury?

I hope that Datuk Haji Awang is well recovered now.

This country's government has gone mad.

7 comments:

Nomad Melayu said...

Thanks you for sharing your experience during the Bersih Rally Dr.

Condolence to the ones who died and to others who were injured.

I wish to share your experience with others, if I may. :)

Doc said...

Hats off to you for a good job and being in the midst of the people who need help.

yenjai.net said...

Salute to you
I can't even express how disappointed I am with the current government

Emily said...

I was following the event on the internet. I thought I was seeing Star Wars with storm troopers attacking. Why gas people who did not enter Dataran Merdeka? Are they foreign invaders? Is there no love for the rakyat?

msforty5 said...

Kudos to you all for good deed done, w/o the medic team the injured will probably be left unattended for sometime. My hubby & his bff were stranded till after 6pm as buses/trains near that area were not in operation. They too bore the effects of teargas despite being far away from Dataran where the real action started. I followed PDRM (on FB) updated status every min to see if anything bad will happen & indeed it did around 3pm plus. Check AlJazeera site, unbiased reported live.

Whatever happened happens, in a situation like this there are bound to be opportunists & we don't blame Bersih. Putting up razor wires, blocking roads, stopping public transportation just made one feel like wanting to fight back.

Hee Wei Han said...

I pride myself of being a fence-sitter and always get the stories from both political divide before coming down with a conclusion. But what happened here is not even political. Its tyrants attacking unarmed civilians with no way of protecting themselves. God bless Malaysia and the wounded.

hmatter said...

To one and all, thanks for your comments.
This country looks corrupted to the core. Police attacking its own people, for no reason, so far from Dataran Merdeka ( if your excuse is we are trying to prevent us sitting down at Dataran ), shows us that it is premeditated, orchestrated by people who fear the people and wish to instil fear.
We all did it for a better Malaysia, for the future generation.
We are proud to be Malaysians