Back at work, and ‘no regrets’: Hong Kong fireman badly burned in 2017 furnace rescue
- Brian Lee won a bravery medal for saving woman who had jumped into pit at a Tsuen Wan temple, though she later died
- Nearly two years after the rescue, he is back on the front line
A Hong Kong firefighter who spent a year recovering from serious burns after saving a woman from a temple furnace in 2017 has said he harbours no regrets and would go into the red-hot compartment again, given the choice.
“Doctors might have had to remove my leg in the worst-case scenario. The burn destroyed all my nerves and blood vessels in my left leg,” Brian Lee Shek-hei said.
“I asked myself a lot if I felt regret. The answer is no. If it were not me, my mates would have done the same thing,” the 37-year-old said.
On September 10, 2017, a 59-year-old woman jumped into a 4.5-metre-deep furnace at Yuen Yuen Institute, a Taoist temple complex in Tsuen Wan. Firefighters arrived in four minutes. Lee was among them, and went deep into the furnace with colleagues Kwan Kam-fai and To Chun-on. They put the woman onto a stretcher and had her outside the furnace in three minutes, but she would die two days later.
Kwan and To sustained minor burns to their legs, but were discharged from hospital the same day.