Hanipa Maidin collapses mid-Mahathir speech

PUTRAJAYA: The Prime Minister's Department monthly assembly today took an unexpected turn when Mohamed Hanipa Maidin collapsed while Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was addressing the civil service.
The Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department for Legal Affairs, 48, fainted and fell off a roughly half-a-metre stage, landing head first on the tiled floor of the assembly square five minutes into the Prime Minister's speech.
The crowd gasped upon seeing Hanipa collapsed, while Mahathir was forced to momentarily stop his address.
Several uniformed Malaysian Civil Defence Department officers who were present for the monthly assembly rushed to attend to the deputy minister while an ambulance arrived at the scene immediately after.
Hanipa, who is Sepang parliamentarian, was seen lying motionless on the ground as medics attended to him for some five minutes before stretching him onto the ambulance and ushering him to the nearest hospital.
He was later seen making some motions as he was taken away from the assembly square.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was also among those checking on him when he collapsed.
Hanipa had previously suffered a stroke and underwent a surgery for brain haemorrhage in 2016.