More than 200 people turned up yesterday to bid a tearful farewell to Muhammad Hambali Sumathi, 13, who died on Monday after a goal post fell on him during a football game.
The Secondary 1 student at Geylang Methodist School had reportedly reached for the crossbar of the goalpost to do a pull-up when he fell backwards.
The structure tipped over and struck his head. He later died in hospital.
Despite the heavy rain yesterday, relatives and friends began waiting from 8am at the void deck of a Eunos Road block to pay their last respects.
Read also: Sec 1 boy dies after goalpost falls on him
Many sobbed when Hambali’s body arrived at 2pm and was carried to his aunt’s home on the second storey.
His classmates and football teammates arrived at 2.30pm in two buses with their teachers, as well as the school principal and vice-principal.
Form teacher Siti Radziatun Abdul Samat, 35, said the class is “trying to cope” with Hambali’s death.
Nyjel Rosshawn, 13, who first met Hambali in kindergarten, said: “He always knew how to bring a smile to someone’s face. I just met him on Sunday to play football. I guess it’s all fate.”
Even as she buried her son at Choa Chu Kang Muslim Cemetery, Hambali’s mother Rajimah Jafar, 49, said she was still struggling to understand how her “happy-go-lucky” 13-year-old could have died.
Madam Rajimah, who last saw her son at 6.30am on Monday, said: “How could the metal fall on him?
“It’s impossible because the metal is strong and heavy. Why didn’t the school consider safety?”
Hambali is the fifth of seven siblings and his oldest sister, local singer Sarah Aqilah, wrote in a Facebook post yesterday that the family hopes to get more details from the school.
“For now, we cannot confirm the exact story. It is just questions running through our heads,” she wrote.
This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.
