Gunman barges into hospital, kills EJK survivor under treatment – health worker

MANILA, Philippines — An unidentified gunman barged into a hospital in Angono, Rizal, on Wednesday morning and shot dead a man being treated for gunshot wounds in the head that he got in an earlier attack.

A hospital worker tweeted about the incident but later made the tweets private.

According to the staff, the patient had reportedly just survived an apparent extrajudicial killing attempt.

“I was attending to an EJK victim this morning. Shot thrice in the face, pretended to be dead, was found by barangay tanod and emergency response team and was brought to our hospital,” the worker said.

“From a palpatory 40 BP,” the patient was revived and miraculously remained “fully conscious, coherent.”

The staff said they were able to get some information from the patient, who allegedly said he knew who shot him. The patient was even able to write it down, although the “papers he wrote on suddenly went missing.”

The hospital worker then said they were able to identify the victim through the tattoos on his body, and with the help of social media, find his address.

However, as they were trying to trace the relatives of the victim and then hours after stabilizing the patient, an unidentified gunman suddenly barged into the hospital emergency room.

“So the gunman went inside the emergency room and shot the patient once,” the witness said.

“Then pointed the gun at us and while all the HCWs cowered in fear, shot the patient for the second time, stormed out of the emergency room, and rode his motorcycle. Just like that.”

Many netizens supportive of the Duterte administration’s drug war expressed doubts as to whether the incident really happened. Some of them questioned whether it was possible to revive a person shot in the face three times — let alone be coherent.

“Where did this happen?  Is this fiction?” a Twitter user who replied on the thread said.

“Shot in three times in the face tapos na-revive mo… fully conscious and coherent?” another asked.

But the chief of the Angono Municipal Police Station, Maj. Richard Corpuz, confirmed the hospital attack, saying that it happened at 11:40 a.m.

The patient — whom he identified as Vincent Adia — was rescued by authorities after being shot in the head.

Rizal Police Provincial Office assured that it was probing the incident.

Corpuz said though that Adia could not speak. All he was able to do was write his own name.

According to the police officer, his office was seeking permission to get a copy of the hospital’s closed-circuit television footage, which might help in the investigation.

Corpuz also revealed that Adia, who hails from Antipolo City, recently got out of prison a year ago.  It is unclear however if he was included in a watchlist of drug suspects.

While President Rodrigo Duterte was hailed for addressing the drug problem in the country, a lot of human rights advocates were wary of the alleged disregard for the rights of drug suspects.

Duterte drew flak from foreign communities, with some countries pushing for greater scrutiny of the drug war.

However, the President repeatedly assured his critics that there were no EJKs in the Philippines, saying that the killings were the result of drug gangs fighting for territorial control.

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