Fall victim's aunt: We believe classmate dared her to perform stunt
Aunt of 14-year-old says family still not sure what happened
She was a cheerful girl who always brought a smile to everyone's face.
This is how family and friends of Shina Adriana Hendricks remember her.
The 14-year-old Spectra Secondary School student fell four storeys from her school building on Tuesday at around 9.30am.
Condolence messages posted by some of her schoolmates on Twitter indicated that Shina was trying to demonstrate a jump when she lost her balance and fell.
She was taken to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and then transferred to KK Women's and Children's Hospital, where she died from her injuries.
Speaking on behalf of the family, Shina's aunt, Ms Sandra Ross, 46, said: "She was a joyful girl who had a soft spot for animals and especially loved cats and dogs.
"She also enjoyed her studies and never gave any problems to her parents."
The youngest of three girls, she was quiet and gentle.
Shina's ambition was to join the police force as a detective, said Ms Ross, a crew manager in the marine industry.
She added that Shina's parents and sisters were unable to speak to the media as they were still grieving over their loss.
"The feeling of losing a child and having to bury your own child, it's a very bad feeling," said Ms Ross.
She said Shina and her classmates were on a toilet break when she climbed over a railing on the fourth storey and fell to her death.
The family believes that a classmate had dared Shina to make the jump and that she had not been performing parkour at the time, as reported in the media.
Parkour practitioners run, jump, climb or vault over obstacles to get from one point to another in the fastest way possible.
She said: "Shina isn't a very sporty or physical person, so parkour is not something she would have done. She never liked roller-blading or that sort of thing.
"We are not sure what happened that day. We won't know what Shina was thinking. But she might have been under peer pressure or a dare.
"She was barely a teenager, just 14. (Teens) don't know any better and have no sense of danger,"
The New Paper understands that the police are investigating the death as a case of misadventure.
Ms Ross hoped that the incident would remind youth not to dare each other to perform dangerous stunts, and also send a message to "be the bigger person and walk away from dangerous dares".
Coach: Parkour is not about daring
Parkour coach Derrick Siu, 42, who has four years' experience in the sport, said: "In a school environment, students might face peer pressure and such dares are how they could get injured.
"People need to realise that the stunts they see in action movies are not real life. You need to train and dedicate many hours of your life to do them."
Weighing in on Tuesday's accident, the founder of parkour academy Superfly Monkey Dragons added: "We need to highlight the issue of peer pressure in schools and create a more accepting community for students.
"I won't call this parkour because in parkour we won't dare each other, we encourage each other. And if we know that you're not ready, we won't ask you to do a stunt."
In a Facebook post yesterday evening, Parkour Singapore, the official group for local parkour practitioners, sent its condolences to Shina's family.
The post also said its members "have yet to find any links between Shina and (the parkour) community", and while they did "not want to boldly make any confirmation that, Shina (was) or (wasn't) doing parkour", there is a need to "prevent this tragedy from happening again".
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