Collapsed lift ceiling at Sengkang East injures 10-yr-old girl, results in five stitches on foot

TODAY reports a 10-year-old girl was given five stitches on her foot after parts of the ceiling of a lift she was in at Sengkang East Way collapsed.

The lift at Block 325A is now under repair until next Monday evening (12 June) according to the notice that is pasted on its door. According to TODAY, the 10-year-old girl, Chung Yan Ting, was sent to the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Yan Ting reportedly said she is now afraid to take the lift. Her father, Chung Koh Choon told TODAY that the family was on their way home after lunch, and had entered the lift on the fourth floor of the block, which is linked to the multi-storey carpark. Mr Chung said his wife had entered the lift first and noticed a long metal rod on the floor. “I was thinking it doesn’t look like something from a household,” he said. But before he could peer up at the ceiling, half of the light cover, made of plastic and metal, fell and hit his daughter. “She ran out of the lift shouting ‘Ah, my head got blood’,” said Mr Chung. Yan Ting had initially thought the blood on her foot had dripped from her head. Yan Ting’s five-year-old brother, who was standing further away from the lift door, was unharmed. While her mother, Madam Saw Soh Peng, suffered a small cut on her right arm. “I am disappointed and surprised that such a thing could happen. It’s the June holidays now. What if a kid was taking the lift alone when the ceiling fell? I don’t know what will happen,”  Mr Chung said. While TODAY reports that residents of Block 325A were worried by news of the incident, TOC understands that lift breakdowns and accidents are infrequent around the area. The lifts at the block were from LG Elevators under Otis Elevator Company, and not from SIGMA lift company which had a number of accidents attributing to its lift and banned from participating in tenders for the lift maintenance. Officials from the town council and the Building and Construction Authority were reported to have visited the scene on Tuesday night. A similar accident took place last year November where parts of the lift ceiling at Block 480, Pasir Ris Drive 4, fell and hit a 63-year-old father and his two-year-old son when they were in the lift on their way back home. Other accidents ranged from slight injuries to death where a 77-year-old wheelchair bound man passed away when his wheelchair fell backwards and cracked his skull. He was about to get off one of the lift at Block 247 Pasir Ris Street 21. The lift was misaligned by 25cm above the ground when it opened at the ground floor. Since the spate of accidents involving lift malfunction,  authorities have since tightened lift maintenance standards and announced that beginning on 1 April 2017, all town councils have to set aside a minimum of 14 percent of their Service and Conservancy Charges (S&CC) collections and government grants for lift replacement. Town councils under the People's Action Party have increased its S&CC charges in response to the new requirement.