Convinced that a female passenger passed away in his car during a ride, a private-hire vehicle (PHV) driver called the police and an ambulance, only to find that the woman was so drunk that she had passed out in his car.
A friend of the PHV driver, Jack, told the Chinese daily that the driver had picked up the 27-year-old passenger at Telok Kurau and had driven her to her destination near Block 109 Commonwealth Crescent, around 3.30am on Sunday (Feb 24).
The passenger had apparently reeked of alcohol and walked unsteadily as she boarded the vehicle. Jack said that the driver was worried that something was amiss when he tried to wake the passenger up for several minutes at her destination, to no avail:
“Upon arriving, the driver tried waking the woman but she did not respond. Noticing an umbrella in his car, he used it to lightly tap the woman in hopes of waking her. However, she remained still even after 15 minutes.
“My friend was scared and thought she had died in his car. He called the police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force.”
The paramedics who arrived at the scene successfully woke the woman up and she returned to her flat safely.
The driver, however, was left troubled. Jack said that his friend called him to tell him this story later and recounted that he was so disturbed by what had happened that he could not sleep for the entire night.