A taxi driver hit a boy crossing the road and then allegedly drove off, claiming his passenger had told him to do so as she was rushing for her dialysis appointment.
The accident, which happened last Friday at Teck Whye Lane, landed the 11-year-old boy in hospital with a hairline fracture on his right ankle, swelling on the back of his head and pain in his left thigh.
He is expected to be discharged today but will be wheelchair-bound for the next two weeks.
Recalling what happened, the boy’s mother, Madam Chandralega Sandaragasen, 43, told The New Paper she was waiting for a taxi to go home with her daughter, who had taken her newborn baby for her first injection at the Choa Chu Kang Polyclinic at about 11.50am.
Wanting to get a cab quickly, she got her 11-year-old son, Thivaker Alivaran, to wait at the opposite side of the four-lane road for a taxi as well.
When a taxi pulled up on her side, Madam Chandralega waved her son over and got into the waiting taxi with her daughter and granddaughter.
That was when she heard a “bang” and saw her son flying through the air.
Another taxi had crashed into him as he was crossing the road.
The impact threw Thivaker, who weighs 112kg, three metres away from the taxi, leaving him unconscious on the road, the housewife told TNP.
SCREAMED
She screamed and, in tears, exited the taxi and ran over to her son.
“I was scared that he wouldn’t wake up,” the housewife told The New Paper yesterday.
Meanwhile, her daughter, Ms Nagarani Mathyalakan, 19, rushed over to the taxi driver, knocking on his window and demanding that he step out of his vehicle.
But he allegedly drove off without a word with his female passenger in the back seat.
“That is very irresponsible, how can they do that,” she said yesterday.
Infuriated but left with no choice, she went back to her brother, who was conscious by then and was in tears, even though he was trying to reassure his panic-stricken mother, saying “nothing wrong, nothing wrong”.
Madam Chandralega and her daughter helped Thivaker into the taxi they had hailed and instructed the cabby to take them to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), where he was warded.
The family recounted their trauma to citizen journalism website Stomp.
Thivaker’s brother, Mr Nagarajan Mathyalakan, 21, told TNP he later tracked down the cabby by calling his cab company.
According to him, the cabby arrived at KKH an hour later.
“He did not apologise even though he had knocked into my brother. When I asked him why he left without helping, he said his passenger was rushing and told him to drive off like nothing happened,” said Mr Nagarajan.
When contacted, the cab company declined to comment.
A police spokesman said investigations are ongoing.
constgoh@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on April 5, 2016.
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