THE parents of a former full-time national serviceman who has been comatose for more than three years after an incident in camp, insisted in court on Tuesday that he was injured while on duty.
Mr Tan Kian Lee, 50, and Madam Hor Hong Kiow, 47, have taken the Defence Ministry to court seeking disability compensation and medical benefits for their son, Jeremy, now 26.
The crux of the case, which opened in the High Court on Tuesday, was whether Mr Jeremy Tan was injured while he was on duty.
Mindef, which has classified his case as a non-service related injury, stopped subsidising his treatment at Tan Tock Seng Hospital from March 2007.
Mr Jeremy Tan, then a corporal, was the scheduled duty storeman at the Seletar East Camp on Aug 3, 2005. At about 6pm, he was found unconscious on a grass patch at the foot of the block where his bunk was located on the third level.
He was later taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital with severe head injuries.
Although the injuries are consistent with a fall from height, there were no eyewitnesses and findings by SAF investigators remain inconclusive as to what led to his injuries. The evidence did not point to suicide.
Mr Jeremy Tan's father contended on Tuesday that his son was on duty as he was still wearing his Army T-shirt, trousers and boots when he was found.
Mr Tan insisted that his son, who was holding the store keys, was still on duty and was waiting to hand them over to his replacement.
But Government lawyers asserted that Mr Jeremy Tan was not at his place of duty at the time.
Read the full report in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.
