Twelve years ago, Anglo-Chinese Junior College rugby captain Lee Wei Kong sprinted through a pedestrian crossing to catch a bus – and was bulldozed by an oncoming taxi. The severe, traumatic head and spinal injuries he suffered needed three major operations within a week. At first, doctors gave him no chance of survival. Then he woke from a 17-day coma, and they said he would be a vegetable.
Today, 29-year-old Wei Kong walks, talks, works as an artist and is married with two daughters. “A rare, successful outcome” was how his first surgeon described it, said his father Lee Swee Chit, 57. However, the Lee family was to endure a whole lot more. “It’s been tough,” said Swee Chit, 57. “He couldn’t even talk. He couldn’t even walk.”
After Wei Kong was discharged from a six-month hospital stay, the Lees started him on a daily physiotherapy regime. It proved arduous even for a teenager at peak physical condition, who had excelled in rugby since his primary school days and earned a call-up to the national under-19 squad. “But he was also very determined. He had fighting spirit,” said Swee Chit.
Once he could walk, Wei Kong’s father began re-teaching him how to swim and cycle – though with no small amount of fretting. Brain injuries from the accident changed Wei Kong’s character and behaviour, his father explained. “His judgement is not there. He doesn’t think much of consequences. Whatever he wants to say, he says. Whatever he wants to do, he must do.”
Speech came slowly to Wei Kong, who spent nearly two years using sign language and drawings to communicate.
But this wasn’t the end of his recovery process. “We never believed in letting him stay still,” said his mother Ho Siew Phin. “Whenever we had the chance, we wanted to push him as far as possible.”
His right hand, which he used to score a distinction in O-level art, remained paralysed. Despite the physiotherapist’s advice to focus on his left, his parents insisted on training the once-dominant hand, and it paid off: Not only did it start to move again, Wei Kong discovered he could still draw with it. He would go on to hold several art exhibitions, which later served as a portfolio for his admission to the Lasalle College of the Arts in 2007.
After Wei Kong graduated from Lasalle, his parents could not find a suitable art-related job for him. So they decided to be less concerned with the nature of work than with him being gainfully employed.
Between 2010 and 2015, Wei Kong tried more than 10 different jobs. None lasted more than six months. “He doesn’t understand working culture. He doesn’t understand social norms,” said Ms Ho.
He has, however, lasted two years in his current job painting murals at Westlite workers’ dormitory in Jurong, which was given to him by a fellow church member and pays about S$1,800 a month.
“You cannot get an understanding employer like this,” said Swee Chit, adding that Wei Kong’s direct supervisor was sent for a course on handling autism. “The company doesn’t even need to paint the walls… They were good enough to bend their policy to accommodate him.”
“If more companies in Singapore are willing to be more flexible with low-functioning people, there’s hope for many of them,” Swee Chit declared.
He said the biggest positive for his son is the feeling of contributing to family. Wei Kong’s courtship and eventual marriage to China native Chen Xiaoli, 28, was initiated by his parents back in 2011 and the couple married in 2013.
His father is also grateful that Wei Kong’s social circle – from church to employer – has helped made it easier. “It’s not our effort alone to make him what he is today. It’s the effort of everybody who did a small part to help him along the way.”
“As parents, we will always have a lot of worries and concerns and fears. But there’s a better future. There’s still hope he can live a normal life.”
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Source: Channel NewsAsia, 12 April 2018