Telok Blangah death: Clinic doctor recounts seeing man, 73, who died, bleeding profusely from chest & neck

The doctor rendered first aid after one of the two injured persons in the incident sought help at his clinic.

Photo via Mothership, @itsmarvin18/TikTok.

A 73-year-old man died at the hospital following an Oct. 5 incident at Block 61 Telok Blangah Heights.

He was found with injuries to his neck and chest area and was bleeding profusely by the time a doctor from a nearby general practitioner clinic attended to him.

A second individual, a 53-year-old man, had a wound on his shoulder and was bleeding, but was still conscious and moving about on his own, the doctor told Mothership.

The incident took place at around 6pm on Oct. 5.

A third individual, a 32-year-old man, later called the police to surrender and was arrested in the vicinity.

Speaking to Mothership, the doctor, Joel Lee, 34, who runs The Local Doctor at 61 Telok Blangah Heights, recounted the events of that evening.

His clinic is located about two units away from the coffee shop under the block, where the 73-year-old was later found.

At the time, Lee had just returned to the clinic to start the 6pm evening shift.

It was a busy evening with a long line of patients.

"I think about maybe... five to seven minutes within a consultation... my staff informed me that somebody was bleeding," Lee recalled. "Then they said it's quite emergent or urgent."

The doctor stepped out with a pair of gloves.

Several others had gathered in the clinic along with his patients.

"So I asked what was happening, who was bleeding? Then one person pointed to a guy who was standing there," Lee shared.

Lee found him with a wound on his left shoulder, and he was using a cloth or towel to stem the bleeding.

"When I asked him, he said, 'Oh, it's okay. There's somebody else who's worse than he was at the coffee shop'," the doctor added.

The doctor gave him some medical instructions, but said he was "not a priority" at that point.

Lee was then led to the nearby coffee shop to the 73-year-old.

It was crowded at the time, but there was no panic despite the scene.

"Everybody was just around," he recalled.

"So when I reached, I saw that there was somebody holding onto [the 73-year-old's] chest already, and his hands were just slumped already," Lee said, adding that the man was bleeding "quite profusely".

According to the doctor, the 73-year-old had injuries to his chest and neck area.

He asked the man some questions, such as if he was okay or how he was feeling, but the man was unable to respond verbally.

"He was only nodding and sort of shaking his head, but not really coherently. He was just trying to tell me he was in distress," Lee said.

"So, by the time I got there, he was really in a very compromised state," Lee said.

The man was no longer bleeding, which the doctor said could either mean that the man had already loss a lot of blood or that the blood pressure was dropping.

It was also possible that it was not as bad a puncture, although the wound was "quite big", Lee said.

"The main thing is I wanted to get him down as early as possible to maintain his blood pressure," the doctor explained.

Lee instructed a person who was helping the man to continue applying pressure on the wound and his clinic staff to help with some medical equipment for an IV drip.

Shortly afterward, an ambulance arrived.

Up to this point, the man was still conscious.

However, he was beginning to slump in the chair if he was left with no support, the doctor said.

As the man was lifted onto the stretcher, he was falling over by himself and "almost out", the doctor added.

When the paramedics did not feel a pulse, Lee suggested that they commence cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

However, the leads on the automated external defibrillator (AED) detected a pulse, Lee shared.

He then tried to run an IV drip for the man and said he needed to go to the hospital immediately.

Lee said he saw that the 53-year-old was being attended to by two other paramedics.

He gave the 53-year-old a thumbs up and the man responded by saying he was okay.

According to Lee, the 53-year-old was able to move about and talk.

His bleeding also appeared to be under control.

"He was just waiting for the paramedic on his own. Then he was just walking around there," the doctor recounted.

When asked how he felt at that moment, Lee said he was just focused on rendering assistance.

He conveyed his condolences to the family of the deceased.

The doctor also pointed out that this was the second incident in the neighbourhood in eight or nine months, with the previous being a fire that destroyed the coffee shop.

During the fire, Lee also stepped up to help triage the injured.

According to the Singapore Police Force, the 73-year-old man later died at the hospital.

The 53-year-old was conscious when conveyed to the hospital.

Coffee shop patrons whom Mothership spoke to on Oct. 6 morning said they were not privy to what happened the evening before.

The man running the mixed rice stall at the coffee shop surmised that the altercation might have taken place elsewhere in the vicinity before the two men arrived at the coffee shop area to seek help.

In a video circulating on TikTok of the aftermath of the incident, a police cordon could be seen set up around the premises of the coffee shop.

Some splatters of blood and blood-stained tissue paper could also be seen on the ground.

A third individual, a 32-year-old man, was arrested by the police on Oct. 5.

He had called the authorities that same evening to surrender.

He will be charged in court for murder on Oct. 7.