SHAH ALAM: “This is the first time I have seen such a unique injury where left ribs number one to seven were broken in a straight verticle line,” a forensic expert said in the inquest into the death of fireman Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim in the Coroner’s Court yesterday.
Kuala Lumpur Hospital’s Forensic Medicine Department chief Datuk Dr Mohd Shah Mahmood, 59, said the unique injury was detected for the first time during the post-mortem on Dec 18 last year.
He said the pattern of the injury showed it may have been caused by a blunt and thin object.
“During the post-mortem, we found for the first time an injury of which we were not informed, that the victim had fractured left ribs number one to seven, and the injury was unique,” the 27th witness said in reply to conducting officer Hamdan Hamzah.
Dr Mohd Shah, who has handled more than 1,000 post-mortems in his 13 years of service in HKL, said the team was also puzzled as to why no prior information was given regarding the injury.
He said the unique injury was not detected during the clinical examination on the victim while he was being treated at the National Heart Institute (IJN) Intensive Care Unit (ICU) on Nov 30.
He also said that on Dec 22 last year, his team was called to assist the police in reconstructing the incident at the scene, during which they had found six possibilities that might have caused the fractures on the ribs.
He said two possibilities involved the victim being hit by the left and right rear corners of the Fire Rescue Tender (FRT) vehicle and another four possibilities involved the victim being hit by the two ladders at the back of the vehicle.
The forensic expert said his team then found the left front door of the Emergency Medical Rescue Service (EMRS) van, which Muhammad Adib travelled in, had a thin and vertical corner of about two-millimetre wide.
“At that point, we realised that it could be the thin and blunt object, which was consistent with the unique injury on his left ribs, which were broken in a straight verticle line,” he said.
Elaborating further, Dr Mohd Shah said the injury patterns showed it was unlikely that Muhammad Adib was crushed (between the FRT vehicle and the EMRS van) as the injuries would have been greater.
He also said there were no injuries on the victim’s arms and legs to indicate he was defending himself from being assaulted.
Muhammad Adib, 24, who was a member of the Subang Jaya Fire and Rescue Station’s EMRS unit, was seriously injured during a riot incident at the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple in USJ 25, Subang Jaya on Nov 27 last year.
He succumbed to his injuries at the IJN on Dec 17. – Bernama
