In the early days of Hong Kong's protests, Jonathan put out a call on a messaging app seeking fellow medics to aid demonstrators -- within a day, 4,000 people had volunteered.

Nurses, doctors, medical students and ordinary people with first aid training all clamoured to join what has become a small volunteer corps helping treat people on the frontlines of protests that have engulfed the city for over two months.

He has quickly become an old hand -- on the evening of August 4 he was already on his third protest site that day, attending to a resident after a cloud of tear gas descended in the Wong Tai Sin neighbourhood.

The role of the volunteer medics has grown more important as protests have become increasingly violent, with police firing tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets at demonstrators hurling bricks and bottles.

- 'A way to help' -

They carried backpacks stocked with gauze, bandages, scissors and antiseptic, as well as saline to rinse the faces of protesters affected by pepper spray and tear gas.

"So I want to find a way to help them so that they can continue to express their demands."

Jonathan, who helped organise the volunteer medics on the Telegram app, is a medical worker and asked to be identified by his first name only.

On weekends, protests often descend into running battles with police, and the medics have to make preparations for being out on the streets overnight, as they did on June 30, when protesters took over key roads on the anniversary of the city's handover to China.

"The injured were brought in by the dozen," Jonathan said.

"That was a shocking moment. Some were injured, some fainted, some had bloody head wounds and some were hysterical, but there were only one or two first aiders to handle it."

"I called my family to tell them what had just happened. I don't think that emotion is something a normal person can handle."

"She's worried about me, but she also understands that even if she asks me not to go, I will continue to go," he said with a smile.

On August 4, his first aid team had been working for 13 hours. It was 1:30 am, but they had no plans to go home.

...

China