Award for 2 men who stopped suicide bid, saved elderly from alleged attack

In October 2022, Mr Tan Tjoa Teng was in a lift going up to his 14th-floor flat in Queen Street when he saw someone near the parapet on the 10th floor through the glass window of the lift.

The 50-year-old hotel manager initially thought the person might be a child playing along the corridor, but he could not shake off the unease he felt.

He took the lift down to the 10th floor and was shocked to find a man – who appeared to be in his fifties – standing on a stool with one leg over the parapet. 

Mr Tan rushed to grab him and spoke to him for an hour before the man, who said he wanted to jump off the flat, eventually calmed down.

Mr Tan was one of two recipients of the Public Spiritedness Award in a ceremony on Thursday at the Police Cantonment Complex.

The other recipient was Mr Muhammad Shahadan Sharom, who recently protected a 71-year-old man from an alleged attacker near Stamford Road on April 11.

For Mr Tan, the details of the incident on Oct 23, 2022 at around noon remain etched in his mind.

“I thought that it was just children playing at first, but the feeling of unease kept building up as I reached my floor. I decided that I had to put my doubts to rest and come to 10th floor to see if it was really just children playing,” he told The Straits Times.

After he stopped the man from jumping over the ledge, Mr Tan saw that he was in tears.

“He told me to just ignore him, walk away and to just let him jump,” said Mr Tan, who continued to ask him questions to distract him from suicidal thoughts.

“He told me that he is not married, and that he had already prepared a suicide note for his family. The man also kept looking at his hands and told me that there were a lot of things on his hands.”

While attempting to coax the man to get off the parapet, Mr Tan tried to signal to a passing neighbour for help.

“I was afraid that the man would get agitated if I said aloud to (the neighbour to) call the police. So I tried to use hand gestures. But the neighbour could not understand my intent and walked away. That was when I started to panic, because I had been talking to this man for quite a while, but there was no one else who could help,” he said.

Mr Tan later managed to send a mobile phone text message to his daughter, who called her mother and told her to alert the police.

The man calmed down before the police arrived and sat on the stool, even suggesting to Mr Tan that they go for a drink.

“But I still did not let go of him because I was worried that if I did, he would run and jump. So we just sat there quietly and waited for the police to arrive,” Mr Tan said.

It was only when the police escorted the man away that the full impact of the ordeal hit Mr Tan.

“I started trembling. My hands were shaking even as I was writing down my details for the police,” he said.

Mr Tan received the award from Commander of Central Police Division, Assistant Commissioner (AC) Jeremy Ang.

Mr Shahadan, a 29-year-old delivery driver, was on his way to make a delivery when he spotted a man allegedly attacking a 71-year-old man.

Mr Shahadan shouted at the alleged attacker and tried to stop the fight.

AC Ang said based on eyewitness accounts and closed-circuit television footage, the man was very persistent but that did not stop Mr Shahadan.

When the man walked away and allegedly retrieved an axe from a bag, Mr Shahadan informed the police of his whereabouts.

“We thank these two individuals for their strong sense of public spiritedness and concern for the safety of others,” said AC Ang.

“In both cases, they stepped forward at personal risk and helped others who were caught in a perilous situation. Their selfless actions are highly commendable.”