Woman perched on sixth storey laundry rack for 3 hours

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SCDF officers rescue woman after high-rise drama in Bukit Batok

Jan 20, 2016 06:00 am

A woman who had been perched on a sixth-storey laundry rack was saved in the nick of time by Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers yesterday.

Two of them dramatically rappelled down to push her towards the flat's kitchen window, while others pulled her off the rack from inside the sixth-storey flat.

The woman had appeared weak and tired after spending three hours on the laundry rack, said a neighbour.

Housewife Tukta Buaban, 32, saw the high-rise drama soon after it started at about 7.30am.

The woman had climbed out from the kitchen window of her landlord's flat in Block 364, Bukit Batok Street 31, and stood on the laundry rack.

She kept changing positions, standing, then squatting, until officers from the SCDF's Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (Dart) came to the rescue.

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Madam Tukta, who lives on the seventh storey, had just returned home after sending her two sons to school when she noticed residents in the opposite block looking in her direction.

When she glanced down, she saw the woman standing on the laundry rack one storey below her.

"I felt so scared and worried for her. I didn't want her to die," said Madam Tukta, a Singapore permanent resident from Thailand.

She then joined a crowd of about 30 people gathered downstairs.

She said: "The woman looked stressed. She stood on the laundry rack for half an hour and then  held on to the window ledge before squatting down. Then she stood up and sat down.

"She kept doing these actions repetitively. She looked very weak and tired, like she was about to fall."

Fortunately, the SCDF Dart team swung into action to save her. And within seconds, she was safely back in the flat.

Lianhe Wanbao reported that the 40-year-old woman is a Singapore PR from Malaysia.

She and her boyfriend had rented the three-bedroom flat three years ago, but one year after living together, he moved out.

The landlord, a 60-year-old warehouse supervisor who wanted to be known as Mr Ang, told Lianhe Wanbao that the woman "disappeared" at the end of November last year. She came back only two weeks later with her boyfriend to pay the rent.

She then "disappeared" again before returning in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

UNUSUAL BEHAVIOUR

Mr Ang said that she had not been her usual self recently.

On Sunday, he saw her sitting outside his flat when he returned home in the afternoon. The contents of her bag were strewn all over the floor. She told him that she had fainted, and had lost her keys and wallet.

SCDF said it received a call about the incident at 7.37am.

Its spokesman said that upon arrival, a woman was sitting on the window ledge of a kitchen on the sixth storey.

Two safety life air packs were set up under the block as a precautionary measure.Dart officers rappelled down and took the woman into the unit to safety.

Police said a 40-year-old woman was arrested for attempted suicide and investigations are ongoing.