A 31-year-old nurse who fell into a coma more than five months ago after being hit by a drunk driver on her birthday was discharged from a hospital in Taitung County on Wednesday after waking up.
Lu Hui-chuan (呂慧娟), who woke up from the coma early last month, has undergone 12 operations since being admitted to the Mackay Memorial Hospital Taitung Branch, where she had worked as a nurse in the psychiatry department since 2008.
DRUNK DRIVER
“My biggest hope is that I will be able to walk again,” she said just before leaving hospital.
Lu was hit by a drunk taxi driver while riding a motorcycle with her co-worker on their way home on May 1 after celebrating her 31st birthday.
She sustained serious head injuries, as well as multiple fractures, when she was flung more than 10m after being struck by the taxi in Taitung City. Her colleague suffered only minor injuries.
FAST RECOVERY
Although able to speak, Lu is mostly paralyzed from the neck down and needs regular physical therapy.
Chang Hung-chang (張鴻章), the hospital’s chief neurosurgeon, said Lu’s recovery was faster than expected.
“Lu is young and she was taken to hospital right after the accident,” Chang said. “Her recovery is going relatively well.”
CHARITY CONCERT
Lu and her family, from the Aborigine Paiwan tribe, have been placed under a heavy financial burden because of the cost of her treatment and with support from the teachers and students of a music class at Taitung’s Malan Elementary School, a charity concert has been scheduled for Monday at the hospital to raise funds for the family.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods