Fourteen years old Thai girl, named Peneakchanasak Nitcharee, was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital with bodily injuries after being hit by a train at the Ang Mo Kio MRT station. The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) received a call on Sunday morning, 2 April 2011, 11.11am informing it that a girl had fallen onto the tracks.
It was not known why Peneakchanasak Nitcharee fell onto the track in the above-ground station at about 11am, but according to local media, the girl was feeling drowsy when she fell onto the tracks. She was on her way to meet her friends, hoping to spend the day at East Coast beach cycling.
According to the SCDF, it was said that her lower limbs were severely injured but she was conscious the whole time. One leg of hers was severed by a train as it came into the station, and the other was so badly mangled that it had to be amputated by doctors. Officers from the SCDF who arrived at the scene of the incident deployed a scoop stretcher to lift the injured girl off the tracks.
A local newspaper office reported that the young teen had come here to stay with a relative in Ang Mo Kio three weeks ago to learn English, and was supposed to return to Thailand on Saturday. Due to this unfortunate accident, Peneakchanasak Nitcharee had to be hospitalized at Tan Tock Seng Hospitals High Dependency ward with her condition being monitored closely.
Train operator SMRT contacted the girl??™s family and on Friday, 8 April 2011, the 14-year-old Thai girl who lost both her legs after falling onto the path of an MRT train at Ang Mo Kio station had a touching reunion with her father.
The father of Peneakchanasak Nitcharee arrived at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in Singapore after a 15-hour coach ride from the familys hometown of Trang in southern Thailand. He hugged and kissed the teen, and gave her moral support upon seeing her daughter who had suffered from the accident.
During the reunion, the father and daughter had tears in their eyes, but they stayed calm. Later, however, when he sat with her aunt at the hospital food court, his calm demeanor dissolved, his shoulders crumpled and he started crying softly. The Father was despaired upon seeing his daughter??™s condition. The young teen was later on moved to an isolation ward to avoid infection and had also been counseled by a psychiatrist.
Due to this unfortunate accident, it had sparked concern among some commuters who felt that more could have been done to step up safety measures at MRT stations. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said all elevated MRT stations will be fitted with “half-height platform screen doors” by next year. The LTA has prioritized the installation works by targeting more crowded stations such as Jurong East, Clementi and Yishun. Priority was given to the East-West Line (EWL), as it has more elevated stations than the North-South Line (NSL). Currently, only 15 of the 36 above-ground stations have been installed with the screen doors.
These are Pasir Ris, Jurong East, Yishun, Bukit Gombak, Bukit Batok, Clementi, Chinese Garden, Lakeside, Eunos, Paya Lebar, Bedok, Aljunied, Kallang, Kembangan and Tanah Merah stations.
Works on the other stations along the EWL will be completed by the third quarter of this year, while the remaining stations on the NSL will be completed by next year.
