A 46-year-old Filipina domestic worker hit by a taxi that ran out of control in Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island on Monday remains in a critical condition in hospital.
Marilou Abunda opened her eyes on Wednesday night after being in a coma for more than two days, sunwebhk.com reported, citing staff keeping watch on the patient at the hospital’s intensive care unit.
“She is not yet fully conscious. She is not yet responding to our commands and cannot yet communicate,” the medic said.
Friends of the worker visited her and said Abunda’s eyes were slightly open and that she could move her legs and bend her knees. However, the right side of her head had been bandaged following an operation shortly after she was admitted on May 27 following the accident. She might need another operation to see which part of her brain was damaged.
Abunda had just taken her 10-year-old ward to school and was on the way back home. She was one of 10 people injured in the drama on Monday morning when the taxi crashed into a pedestrian island.
Abunda’s friends said she sustained the most injuries because she apparently tried to shield an elderly woman from the runaway taxi.
The domestic worker, who has been separated from her husband for years and does not have any children, has worked for her employer, Chris Lee and his family, for the past 16 years.
Lee has been looking after Abunda well, hardly leaving her side while working on getting her relatives to fly to Hong Kong to comfort her as soon as possible.
With help from the Consulate and the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, the employer had managed to issue an invitation to Abunda’s sister-in-law and niece so they can fly to Hong Kong immediately to be by her side.
Read: Ten injured as taxi loses control in Hong Kong