A road crash victim who died hours after receiving a transfusion of the wrong blood type would not have survived the accident anyway, an expert said yesterday. However, an inquest into the death heard conflicting versions from a doctor and a nurse on how four bags of the wrong type of blood were administered. Delivery worker Tsui Wai-ming, 20, was admitted to Queen Mary Hospital on August 9 last year after an accident while heading towards Aberdeen on Shek Pai Wan Road. He died the following morning, a few hours after blood of types 'A' and 'B' - incompatible with his own 'O' type - were given to him by staff in the intensive care unit. Dr Chan Tai-kwong, Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, said the transfusion was 'unfortunate', but that Tsui's condition was 'already very poor'. He said that the incompatible transfusion had played little or no part in causing Tsui's death and the major cause of death was severe injuries to the head and neck. Another expert, Dr Dawson Fong To-sang, told Coroner David Thomas that only one in five patients with such critical injuries had a chance of survival. The inquest heard conflicting evidence from a doctor and a nurse who tended to Tsui at the unit. Dr Chan Wai-fan said he had asked nurse Mable Mok Miu-po to collect some 'unmatched blood' - compatible with all types - from the blood bank. He said Ms Mok did not inform him the blood had been collected and he was only told later by another nurse that there were four empty blood bags next to Tsui. But Ms Mok told the inquest that she was surprised when Dr Chan told her to 'get some blood', pointing to the bags of blood 'A' and 'B'. Dr Chan said he had only pointed in the general direction of the blood bank and did not know types 'A' and 'B' were stored at the unit. Ms Mok said she had specifically asked the doctor if he was sure he wanted those bags of blood, but Dr Chan said he had not heard this. The nurse said she had placed the bags on Tsui's bedside table and saw they were empty later in the night.
