A race against time: SCDF officer recalls challenging extrication rescue involving pregnant woman
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Lieutenant-Colonel Foo Yiing Kai was part of a challenging vehicle extrication rescue involving a pregnant woman in 2011.
PHOTOS: LIANHE WANBAO READER, KUA CHEE SIONG, ALAN LAU
SINGAPORE – On April 1, 2011, Lieutenant-Colonel Foo Yiing Kai was serving as a rota commander at Central Fire Station when the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) was alerted to a serious accident in Shenton Way just past midnight.
A Lamborghini supercar had collided with a Comfort taxi, and a female passenger in the taxi was trapped between the rear and front seats.
“I remember when we were trying to free her from the (taxi), her left arm was shielding her stomach. I thought she was just in pain due to the impact of the crash,” said Lt-Col Foo, 45, now a commander at Punggol Fire Station.
“Later, I felt something watery on the seat and I thought it was blood. It was only later that I realised her water bag had broken and her baby was coming out, which added to the complication of the extrication.”
It remains one of the most challenging vehicle extrication rescues that Lt-Col Foo has been a part of in his 21-year career.
His team had to act fast but also ensure the safety of both the woman, who was eight months pregnant, and her unborn child.
The female passenger in the taxi was trapped between the rear and front seats.
It took about an hour for Lt-Col Foo’s team to remove two doors, a door panel and the front passenger seat with a hydraulic spreader and a hydraulic cutter before they could free the woman, who was rushed to hospital for an emergency caesarean section.
“It was a great relief for me and my team because we were able to free the mother and unborn child in the nick of time. If not, we might have lost both of them,” he said.
The baby was safely delivered. The woman, however, was paralysed from the shoulders down after the accident.
From 2018 to 2022, SCDF received an annual average of about 291 calls related to road traffic accidents.
The number of calls between 2017 and 2019 stood at 336, 303 and 297 respectively.
In 2020 - when the pandemic began - the call numbers dipped to 227, before rebounding to 290 in 2021 and 339 in 2022.
There were 215 calls in the first seven months of 2023.
Of the calls related to road traffic accidents from 2018 to 2022, an average of about 62 involved trapped passengers, said the SCDF. Between January and July 2023, there were 38 such calls.
When there are passengers trapped in vehicles, fire station personnel will be deployed to join the rescue.
SCDF’s front-liners train for such scenarios twice a year at their respective fire stations.
In a drill that The Sunday Times witnessed last Monday, firefighters at Punggol Fire Station had to free a mannequin “passenger” trapped in the driver’s seat of a sedan.
Before the exercise began, fire station personnel had to don personal protective equipment such as luminous vests, leggings, helmets, gloves and visors.
Deputy rota commander Mohammed Fayrus Abdul Rasit was the ground commander of the exercise.
First, he assessed the situation on the ground, checking the number of vehicles involved and the number of people trapped.
He also looked out for potential hazards such as leaking fuel and shattered glass, and made sure bystanders were not too close to the vehicle.
His team then placed rubber chocks at key points between the sedan and the ground to prevent the car from shaking during the rescue operation.
In this simulation, a car door was jammed, so a glass puncher was used to remove the side window.
A firefighter using a glass puncher to remove the side window of a car in a training exercise.
A paramedic then entered the car through the window.
He put a neck collar and a semi-rigid brace on the mannequin “passenger” and covered it with a blanket to protect it from sharp edges that could be created during the process of cutting through the door.
A paramedic in the training exercise entering a car through the side window to assess the condition of the “trapped victim”, a mannequin, in this case.
Wielding a hydraulic spreader and a hydraulic cutter, the officers then carefully removed the door on the driver’s side.
Firefighters using a hydraulic spreader to open the door on the driver’s side.
The team then pushed the dashboard away using a hydraulic rescue ram to create more space for them to free the “passenger”.
The process took 30 minutes.
The mannequin “passenger” being freed. The rescue process took 30 minutes.
Lt-Col Foo said: “From the time we arrive at the scene till a trapped passenger reaches the hospital, it is a race against time as we have only one hour. This is known as the ‘golden hour’.”
Prompt medical treatment given to a person with traumatic injuries during the golden hour immediately after an accident helps increase the chances of survival.
If the extrication takes more than an hour due to complexities arising from the accident, the fire station commander will gather the facts from the Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team and the paramedics, and decide if a medical team is required to go on site, said Lt-Col Foo.
Sergeant Jeremy Liang, a paramedic of 15 years who took part in the exercise, said he himself was trapped in a car when it rolled down a slope during an overseas road trip in 2014.
He said he understands that accident victims in a similar predicament would be afraid and in shock, but they must try to stay calm, and stay awake for as long as possible.
It is important for them to check their surroundings, Sgt Liang said. They can wind down the window – if it is not jammed – and press the car horn or shout for help.
“Don’t try to get out of the vehicle immediately because you might not know if you have a very bad injury or not,” he said.
Lt-Col Foo added: “We also encourage drivers to have a fire extinguisher and a first-aid kit on standby, as they never know when they might need them.”
They can also use these to lend a helping hand when they see a road accident.
The public can call 995 for help when there is an accident, Lt-Col Foo added.
Additional reporting by Sarah Koh
Some accidents which required extrication rescue in 2023
Feb 28: An SBS Transit bus and a trailer truck collided on the Seletar Expressway (SLE) towards the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE). The bus driver was trapped in his seat and had to be freed.
March 27: A van skidded and crashed into a covered walkway near Redhill MRT station. A man was extricated from the driver’s seat and rushed to hospital, but did not survive.
April 17: A van collided with a trailer truck on the Pan Island Expressway (PIE). The driver was trapped in his seat as the driver’s cabin was crushed against the rear of the truck. He did not survive.
April 19: A motorcyclist was pinned under a car after an accident at the junction of Cavenagh Road and Bukit Timah Road. He was rescued using hydraulic rescue equipment.
May 2: After a taxi and lorry collided near Suntec City, a man had to be freed from his seat in one of the vehicles.
June 26: A man was found dead after his car skidded along the PIE towards Tuas and fell into a canal. The car had overturned and partially submerged in water, and the driver had to be extricated from his seat.
Aug 2: A lorry driver was trapped in his seat, with his legs pinned under the dashboard, after his lorry collided with a truck on the SLE towards BKE. Rescuers used two hydraulic extendable ramps to push the dashboard away to create enough space to free his legs. They also had to remove the clutch pedal that had trapped the driver’s left foot.
Aug 11: A driver was trapped in his seat after his car skidded in Seletar West Link. He was freed from his seat and survived. His two passengers died.