Falling piece of concrete injures man outside Wanderlust Hotel

SINGAPORE: A man was injured after being hit by a falling piece of concrete outside Wanderlust Hotel on Dickson Road on Tuesday (Nov 27).

In a video shared on social media, the man – believed to be a 35-year-old Malaysian national – is seen being attended to by personnel from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) as he lay on the ground amid the fallen debris. 

SCDF said it was alerted to a call for medical assistance at about 11.40pm, adding that the injured man was subsequently taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

It is understood the man, who was sitting outside the hotel when the plaster slab fell on him, sustained spinal injuries and could not move his lower body.

A spokesperson for the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said the police notified it of “a fallen architectural feature outside Wanderlust Hotel” at 12.30am. 

“BCA engineers immediately inspected the incident site and observed that a strip of architectural feature made of plaster, estimated to be 4.0m by 0.3m in size, had fallen off from the second floor of the building,” the spokesperson said. 

“As an immediate precautionary measure, the affected area directly below, where the architectural feature had fallen from the building, and other parts of the building facade with the similar feature have been cordoned off.” 

The spokesperson added: “BCA has instructed the building owner to appoint a Professional Engineer (PE) to investigate into the cause of the incident and inspect the condition of the rest of the building façade, as well as to carry out permanent rectification works as recommended by the PE.”

The four-storey building, which dates from the 1920s, is part of the Little India Conservation Area.

BCA is conducting further investigations into the incident.