Death, trauma, divorce: How impact of traffic accidents in Singapore extends beyond A&E department

SINGAPORE – On the floor of Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s (TTSH) accident and emergency (A&E) department sat a bloodied plastic bag containing the shattered leg bones of a lorry driver.

Around it, the trauma team moved in a frantic blur, trying to save his life.

Minutes earlier, the man, in his 30s, had been pinned inside his vehicle after a collision with another lorry.

The impact had crumpled the cabin inwards, trapping him.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force used hydraulic tools to free him, while gathering the fragments of his crushed limb.

Ms Eunice Tay, an advanced practice nurse at TTSH, said it was one of the worst accidents she had seen in recent years.

She said: “His leg was so badly crushed it did not resemble a leg any more.”

Despite the medical team’s efforts, the man died.

Ms Tay said TTSH’s trauma team sees about four cases of severe trauma injuries from road traffic accidents every week.

Established in 2003 as Singapore’s first dedicated trauma unit, the TTSH Trauma Centre serves as the critical hub for the island’s most complex emergencies.

The centre’s director, Adjunct Assistant Professor Teo Li-Tserng, said he sees up to 10 major trauma cases a week.

He said that if he was seeing a road accident patient at the hospital, it meant that the patient had probably been in a very serious incident.

Boy looked like zombie

He recalled a shocking case involving an upper primary schoolboy who had been run over by a cement truck.

The child arrived with a fiercely red face and bloodshot eyes caused by blood being forcefully trapped in his upper body, along with a fractured femur piercing his skin.

Prof Teo said: “He looked like someone right out of a zombie movie, but he was just a kid.”

While the instinct might be to immediately treat the leg injury to ease the patient’s pain, Prof Teo noticed the boy’s laboured breathing and suspected more severe internal injuries.

With the patient’s blood pressure plunging, panic threatened to overtake the room.

Prof Teo recalled: “Everybody was rushing to do stuff to him. We had to take a step back and prioritise doing what was more important for the patient at that point in time to save his life.”

The protruding femur, he said, was visually shocking, but was not critical.

Stripping away the boy’s shirt revealed tyre marks across his chest, signalling severe damage to his heart and lungs.

Prioritising the patient’s failing lungs and heart over the shattered leg, the team rushed the boy into emergency surgery. He survived after months of operations and treatment in the hospital.

Prof Teo said medical staff can get emotional, especially when their patient is a child. But they have a job to do, and they know that clouded judgment can spell disaster.

He said: “We do feel the pain, especially when a young child is injured. But you know you need to recalibrate and stay focused, otherwise the patient is going to die. Our emotions at that time are not important.”

Singapore’s roads are now at their most dangerous in years, with traffic deaths hitting a 10-year high of 149 in 2025, compared with 141 in 2016.

There were 142 deaths from traffic incidents in 2024.

The number of traffic-related injuries also surged from 9,342 in 2024 to 9,955 in 2025.

Given the dire situation on Singapore’s roads, The Straits Times will be running stories to remind all road users to be responsible.

Stories will include those of accident victims, investigation officers and trauma experts, among many others, to highlight the irreversible consequences in a traffic accident, regardless of whose fault it is.

Prof Teo said the frustration for medical professionals is that almost all of these tragedies are avoidable.

He added: “If one has a heart attack or stroke while driving, then yes, an accident may not be avoidable. But most of the time, accidents are preventable.”

He cited distraction, fatigue, intoxication and sheer recklessness as the primary reasons for accidents, and added that these dangerous behaviours applied to all road users.

Prof Teo said simple safety measures, such as wearing seat belts and helmets, are what give his team a chance to save lives.

He said: “If you are involved in an accident while observing safety rules, you are more likely to arrive alive, so I can do something for you.”

But if a road user was not observing safety rules, he added, “the injuries may be so devastating that even if you arrive alive, my team and I may not be able to save you”.

Prof Teo said that the devastation of a road traffic accident extends beyond the operating table.

“Solving the physical injury is relatively easy. If the bone is fractured, we will fix it. If the liver is ruptured, we will put it back together,” he said.

“But when we deal with the psychological rehab and returning the patient to a quality of life or a semblance of what they think life should be, that, I think, is the challenging part.”

Mental trauma

Ms Lum Khay Xian, TTSH’s trauma psychology lead, estimates that about one in five accident survivors may develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

She said victims who endure the agony of being trapped in a crushed vehicle face a long road to mental recovery.

She added: “When they finally come to the hospital, they get treated for their physical injuries. The body might have got out, but the mind is still at the scene.”

Ms Lum said the aftermath could shatter families long after the physical wounds have healed.

“After a road accident, it is not just the injured person who is affected. Their loved ones also feel a lot of emotional pain, and that can strain relationships,” she said.

In some cases, survivors lose limbs or become dependent on others for their daily activities.

This can affect their sense of self-worth and cause tension in the family, with extreme cases sometimes ending in divorce.

In the boy’s case, his parents blamed each other for the incident.

For some survivors, the trauma can be triggered months later by something as simple as a passing sound or an image.

Ms Lum said those who suffer from PTSD may constantly be on high alert and become easily irritable, which can also strain relationships.

While she and her colleagues do their best to listen and help, she urges road users to think about the consequences of their actions.

“I hope we can all make that careful decision to slow down, observe the rules and look around, to safeguard yourself and someone else’s loved one,” Ms Lum said.

“What if because of you slowing down, someone gets to go home safely, and someone’s family stays whole?”