Shot hostage talks about the pain of survival
Feb 23, 2011
A woman who survived being shot in the face by the gunman during the Manila bus hijacking told the Hong Kong inquest she could no longer go out without wearing a mask because her face scared little children.
Yik Siu-ling, 33, was testifying on the seventh day of the inquest into the deaths of eight Hongkongers held hostage by sacked police officer Rolando Mendoza on August 23.
“I can’t even buckle my bra. I have to wear a mask every day. People ask me if I’m sick,” said Yik, the last survivor to testify, who wept as she gave evidence. Her sister Yik Tai-lam sat beside her during the hearing.
Outside court, the tearful survivor expressed her disappointment at the absence of Filipino witnesses from the inquest.
“They made the mistakes, why don’t they come over [to testify]? she said. “[They treat it] as a trivial matter. They pretended nothing has happened even though so many people died.” She hoped that the inquest would bring justice to the victims, survivors and their families.
Coroner’s officer Jat Sew-tong said outside the court that 72 Filipino witnesses had officially refused to testify. The remaining 44 who were invited had yet to respond.
Yik’s lawyer, Daniel Wong Kwok-tung, asked her to show her injuries to the jury. Yik complied and removed her mask, revealing a misshapen chin below a missing lower lip. Her teeth were broken and she could no longer speak clearly, she said.
Recalling events on August 23, Yik testified that Mendoza, after watching his brother’s arrest near the hijacked bus on television, threw down his phone and started shooting.
“As soon as I heard a gunshot, I shut my eyes … I was shot in under a minute,” Yik said. She said she had held up her hands to cover her eyes, and she did not see the rifle pointed at her. Pretending to be dead, she kept her eyes shut throughout the shootings until she heard police talking outside the bus.
About an hour after she was shot, she heard a “boom”.
“Something hit my head from the right. I said to myself: `Oh no! I’m definitely going to die this time’.”
She thought at the time that it was another gunshot, but it was a blow to her head. She was sitting by the window on the right side of the bus, the court heard.
“When I opened my eyes, my left thumb was blown off and it was dangling [at the joint],” she said. Her right index finger was also smashed.
Yik, who remained composed while giving evidence, burst into tears as the court was shown Filipino news footage showing police officers standing around Mendoza’s relatives. The footage was aired on the evening of the bus hijack, about 7pm, 20 minutes before the shootings inside the bus began.
Survivor Chan Kwok-chu, 47, testified earlier that Mendoza first shot in the direction of tour guide Masa Tse Ting-chunn, 31, and then in Yik’s direction before shooting others.
Before Yik heard gunshots, she saw the tour guide standing on the steps at the door to watch the television. His right hand was handcuffed. She did not see him getting shot. Later, as she was waiting to be rescued, she looked out the window and saw Tse’s body lying on the ground outside the bus. “No one was attending to him,” she said.
At 8.55pm, police smashed the bus window and lifted Yik out.
Outside court, Yik said that she has to see a psychiatrist, “I have flashbacks when I close my eyes.”
She told Commercial Radio she couldn’t go out without wearing a mask because she thinks she looks ugly. Once, when she forgot to wear a mask, a little girl had pointed at her, crying out: “Mummy, she is so terrible.” Grief-stricken, she had returned home.
But she described her survival as a miracle and said she looked forward to the time she could lift her little daughter up again and embrace her, take her to school, play with her and go shopping.
The inquest continues today before Michael Chan Pik-kiu.
SCMP
Maggie Ng and Simpson Cheung
Source: http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a0a0/?vgnextoid=a2a08b3b0fd4e210VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=Hong+Kong&s=News
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