The condition of teenager Jason Leung Song-xue has stabilised after brain surgery in Tuen Mun Hospital and he has been placed in a deep coma to conserve his strength while he recovers.
The 18-year-old - the sole surviving child of his widowed mother, who lost her two daughters and husband in the Manila siege - had the front of his skull removed temporarily to relieve pressure on his swollen brain.
Separately, doctors said two other injured victims were well on their way to a full recovery.
Leung is in a medically induced coma that keeps his bodily functions at three on the coma scale, the lowest level. 'In brief, it's a resting phase ... for how long I cannot predict,' the hospital's neurosurgery chief Dr Dawson Fong To-sang said yesterday. 'If there are no complications, if everything goes smoothly, the swelling in the brain should stabilise within a week or 10 days.'
The teen suffered a blow to the head from an unknown object while aboard the hijacked Hong Thai Travel tour bus on Monday. He was flown back to Hong Kong on Thursday with his mother Amy and underwent surgery that night. He moved his fingers a little when someone called his name on the flight.
Fong said the pressure on his brain fell to an acceptable level after the surgery.