Telok Blangah murder: Clinic doctor rushed to help elderly man who was stabbed in the chest

SINGAPORE – The doctor was seeing his first patient for the evening on Oct 5 when a staff burst into his office to say there was someone bleeding in the clinic.

It was around 6pm when Dr Joel Lee from The Local Doctor Clinic at 61 Telok Blangah Heights stepped outside his office. He saw a bleeding man, aided by two others, who said he had been stabbed.

Surprisingly, the injured 53-year-old man, who was bleeding from his left shoulder, told Dr Lee to help someone else instead.

Because a 73-year-old man had also been stabbed and was at a nearby coffee shop in a worse condition, said the younger man.

Dr Lee told him to put pressure on the wound and rushed to the coffee shop.

The elderly man had been bleeding from his chest, and Dr Lee tried to stop the blood flow. He tried to keep the victim awake by talking to him.

Paramedics from the Singapore Civil Defence Force arrived and rushed him to the Singapore General Hospital but he later died from his injuries.

The police said a 32-year-old man later called the police to surrender, and was arrested. He will be charged with murder on Oct 7.

On Oct 6, Dr Lee, 34, told The Straits Times in his office that the elderly man had been bleeding profusely.

He said: “By the time I got there.... there was somebody holding onto his chest, and his hands had already slumped.”

On Oct 5, the police said the 73-year-old man was found lying motionless and a 53-year-old man was injured at the ground floor of the block.

Said Dr Lee: “He (the elderly man) was just trying to tell me he was in distress. When the ambulance arrived, I signalled to the paramedics that he needed to lie down.”

Dr Lee said in any stabbing situation, the priority is to establish if the patient was stabbed in a vital area such as a main artery or lung, and to try to stop the bleeding.

He said cardiopulmonary resuscitation was applied on the man in the ambulance but he died from his injuries.

Harvinder Singh, 66, a Telok Blangah Heights resident for 48 years, was having his evening beer three tables away from where the older man was being treated by Dr Lee.

Singh said the victim was a familiar face at the coffee shop where he had evening meals with his family.

Said Singh: “I heard shouting coming from the letter box area of Block 57. The man then came closer to a small grass patch opposite the coffee shop shouting, ‘Help, help... call police!’

“He was running towards the coffee shop. We were all stunned and did not know what to do until he came closer, and we saw he was bleeding from the right side of his chest.”

There were about 15 patrons at the coffee shop. One of them called the police.

At block 57, ST found blood droplets several metres from the letter box area.

On Oct 6, Telok Blangah MP Rachel Ong said in Facebook post she was heartbroken by the incident.

She had met the family of the deceased on the night of the incident.

Ong said: “I urge everyone not to speculate or share unverified information, whether online or in conversation. Out of respect for the family, please also refrain from sharing names, photos or any details that may identify them. Please allow the police to investigate and the legal process to take its course.”

The police had said the suspect is believed to have acted alone, and there was no evidence to suggest it was a religiously motivated attack or an act of terror.