No big difference even Chow Tsz-lok was hospitalized 10 minutes earlier, says doctor

Given Chow Tsz-lok’s situation when he arrived in the hospital, it would not make a big difference even if he arrived 10 minutes earlier, and it is unclear if Chow was still conscious before his fall, a doctor told the Coroner’s Court.

On the 20th day of the inquest into the death of university student Chow during last year's anti-government protests, a neurosurgeon of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Calvin Mak Hoi-kwan said Chow’s situation does not look good when he came into the hospital.

“Normally for cases involving head trauma, it is better for the patient to arrive at the hospital as soon as possible, but for Chow’s case, his condition would not be much different, having the same mortality rate,” said Mak.

According to Mak’s report, Chow had undergone head surgery at 4am on the day he fell, lowering his intracranial pressure. Chow was taken to the Intensive Care Unit at 8am, with his coma scale unchanged. At 3pm, a second brain surgery still failed to lower the pressure significantly.

Chow’s situation again deteriorated at night of the following day with his brain severely damaged. Chow lost pulse at around 6am on November 8, and was declared dead at 8.01am.

Mak told the Coroner that Chow’s head trauma may have been caused by an extreme external force, but it is unsure the injury was caused by a single or multiple hits.

He later supplemented that Chow’s head may have rebounded on the ground casing multiple hits, and due to the fall may have happened in less than a second, the body may not be fast enough to react to protect himself.