Adib inquest: Experts differ over EMRS van impact
SHAH ALAM: Retired UKM pathology professor Dr Shahrom Abd Wahid rebutted testimony by Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) forensic department head Dr Mohd Shah Mahmood and its medical forensic specialist Dr Ahmad Hafizam Hasmi over the impact of the reversing Emergency Medical Rescue Services (EMRS) van.
Referring to the played videos to support his testimony, Shahrom said that Adib’s injuries could not have come from being hit by the EMRS open front passenger door as control tests on test dummies and a live subject (showed in the reenactment videos) showed that said subjects always landed on their side and back rather than their front.
Dr Mohd Shah and Dr Ahmad Hafizam Hasmi were also involved in the medical autopsy on Adib when the 24-year-old victim was admitted at the National Heart Institute (IJN) following the Nov 27 Seafield Temple riots last year, and also involved in the actual autopsy when the firefighter died shortly after in December.
Syazlin: Could you tell the court of your opinion of the hypothesis arrived at by HKL experts?
Shahrom: I find their hypothesis untested. I looked through the hypothesis and I find it untrue because even if the EMRS van was moving at less than 15km per hour and the victim suddenly stepped down onto the road.
Just say that it (van) slowed down to 12km per hour and the door hit the victim. The net momentum is only 3km per hour by minus 15km per hour from 12km per hour.
This is too little (impact and momentum). It would not break any of the ribs, for example (Adib’s) left rear ribs.
Shahrom pointed to the videos showing firefighter reenactments with a dummy where an EMRS van reversed at 17km per hour and hit the standing dummy’s back with the vehicle’s open front left passenger door, where the dummy merely spun around and fell onto its left and then the back of its head, without its front side ever suffering impact on the ground.
He said that the control experiments showed that any injury resulting from the HKL experts’ hypothesis should not have been on Adib’s front but focused on his back and the back of his head.
“Even at 17km per hour, it (impact from the EMRS van) was not strong enough. Even if a child were to sent falling would result in nothing much (injury), what more an adult,” he said.
“The video (of an accident involving a bus hitting a man from the back) showed the bus hitting the man, but he fell onto his side (at the side of the road), and stood up again.
“That (bus was travelling) faster than 17km per hour (the maximum upper limit at which the HKL experts hypothesised the EMRS van was reversing).
“Even if there are fractures, it would only be a bit here and there. In this case, the man (in the video involving the bus) could still stand up.
“When I compare this to the EMRS, I just do not see how it reversing could cause the victim to sustain injuries (revealed in the autopsy),” he said.
Shahrom said there is a possibility that there was a separate group of rioters behind the FRT lorry and at the side of the EMRS van as it reversed, which explains how Adib got pulled out.
“However, after viewing the (48-second) video, I did not see any of the rioters at the front of the FRT manage to reach the EMRS van where the victim was.
“There is a bigger possibility of a separate group of people coming at Adib from the rear.
“Suddenly, he (Adib) was attacked and (pulled out) by another person. This person (who pulled Adib out) was not from the group of rioters at the front (of the FRT lorry),” Shahrom said.
