Motorcyclist dies in ECP accident, passenger of minibus that braked suddenly arrested

Sherlyn Sim
The Straits Times
Nov 9, 2023

A 27-year-old man died on Wednesday after an accident involving a minibus, a lorry and a motorcycle in East Coast Parkway (ECP).

A 38-year-old male passenger of the minibus was arrested and is assisting the police with investigations. It is not known what he was arrested for.

When contacted on Thursday, the police and Singapore Civil Defence Force said they were alerted to an accident along ECP towards the city before the Marina Coastal Expressway exit at around 11am on Wednesday.

The motorcyclist was unconscious when taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where he subsequently died, police said, adding that investigations are ongoing.

Photos of the aftermath of the accident circulating on Instagram showed the badly damaged motorcycle behind a lorry.

Parts of the motorcycle, including a side mirror, were scattered across the road, along with a slipper, bandages, shards of glass and a trail of blood.

Ms Lynn Long-Yam, 32, a home care nurse, told The Straits Times she was on her way to her patient’s home when she saw a motorcyclist lying motionless in a pool of blood on the leftmost lane of the road.

Ms Long-Yam got out of her car immediately and called an ambulance. She tried to talk to the motorcyclist, but he was unresponsive. Four other motorists joined her to assist the man and divert traffic.

Realising that the motorcyclist had no pulse, Ms Long-Yam and a passer-by, chiropractor Ashley Liew, 36, took turns to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on him for 10 minutes until an ambulance arrived.

Ms Long-Yam said: “As a nurse, it was only natural to have stepped up to help the man. When Mr Liew and I were performing CPR, we were getting quite tired. Knowing that there were other bystanders trying with me to help the man kept me going.”

Mr Liew’s wife, Ms Sandra Faustina, 32, who was also at the scene, told ST that the driver of the lorry told them that he had stopped his vehicle abruptly after the minibus in front of him had braked suddenly. The move caused the motorcyclist behind the lorry to hit the vehicle, according to the lorry driver.