Few people have the chance of asking themselves what they want to do with their lives after surviving a plane crash, but 72-year-old Liu Chao-hui (劉兆輝), one of the survivors of the TransAsia Airways crash in February, has decided to resume his medical career as well as join a chorus after being discharged from hospital yesterday.
Yesterday marked the 73rd day since Flight GE235, carrying 53 passengers and five crew members, plunged into the Keelung River (基隆河) in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港) shortly after taking off on Feb. 4, killing 43 people on board.
Liu was one of two injured passengers who were rushed to Taipei Medical University Hospital for emergency treatment.
Photo: CNA
The hospital held a press conference yesterday to celebrate Liu’s second chance at life.
Recounting his fight for survival, Liu said he had come close to death four times in the past 73 days.
“The first time was when I survived the crash, followed by another near-death experience when I was drowning inside the crashed, water-logged cabin, until members of the search-and-rescue team found me and pulled me out,” Liu said.
Photo: CNA
Liu said the third time was when he suffered an aortic rupture leading to massive bleeding after being rushed to the hospital, where doctors managed to save his life with timely surgery.
The close brushes with death did not stop there, Liu said.
“After I was admitted into the intensive care unit, I came down with severe pneumonia that nearly killed me, but once again, I beat the odds and survived,” he said.
Tsao Nai-wen (曹乃文), an attending physician in the hospital’s cardiovascular surgery division, said that when Liu arrived at the hospital’s emergency room, he had an aortic rupture, rib and pelvis fractures, a lung contusion and massive bleeding in the abdominal cavity.
“The injuries sent his temperature dangerously low and he went into hemorrhagic shock... But he is recovering well and is able to walk with the help of assistive devices,” Tsao said.
Hospital superintendent Chen Ray-jade (陳瑞杰) said the Liu’s injuries reached 43 on the injury severity score scale — on a scale of zero to 75, with 75 being the worst — and he had an expected survival score of just 45 percent.
Asked what he plans to do next, Liu said he would continue his practice as an obstetrician in Kinmen — where he has been for nearly five decades — for as long as his patients need him.
He said he also plans to join a chorus.
“I have always enjoyed classical music, especially music by Beethoven and Mozart. So I have decided to join the Kinmen County choir and bring soothing music to every corner of the world,” he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS