He thought a bomb had gone off when he heard a bang behind him.
When he turned around, he saw that a black car and a white car had collided at the junction of Yishun Avenue 2 and Yishun Ring Road.
Ashvin Gunasegaran, 12, ran towards the junction, concerned about the condition of the occupants in the cars.
The Primary 6 pupil and five friends were walking home after remedial classes at Yishun Primary School around 1pm on Tuesday when the accident happened.
He told The New Paper in an interview at his Yishun Ring Road home yesterday that they were the first to reach the scene.
He did not do anything at first because he thought that adults, who arrived soon after them, would help the victims.
But no one went forward. Some of them were using their mobile phones to take photos and videos of the accident scene.
That was when he decided he had to do something to help the victims.
He said: “I was afraid the accident might have been fatal. All I could think was, ‘Oh my God, please be okay.’
“My friends were telling me it’s too dangerous, but I thought that someone needed to make sure the drivers were okay.”
He waited for the traffic lights at the pedestrian crossing to turn green before approaching the white car, which had mounted the central divider.
Ashvin said the driver, a pregnant woman, had a deep cut on her arm and was crying, but she assured him she was not badly injured.
She asked him to help look for her glasses, which had fallen off, but he could not find them.
HELP
Her female passenger managed to get out of the car, but the pregnant woman was stuck inside because her door was jammed.
Ashvin tried to open the door in vain. He then went to check on the driver of the black car.
She assured him she was not injured, and told him she was calling the police. She had a male passenger.
Ashvin said he then waited for an ambulance to arrive to take the pregnant woman to hospital before leaving the scene.
The police and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) were alerted to the accident at 1.10pm.
An SCDF spokesman confirmed that the pregnant driver was taken to KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in an ambulance. The police said she is 31 years old.
Ashvin told his mother, Madam Helen Louisa, 50, about the incident after he got home.
The housewife told TNP: “When he showed me the photo his friend had taken, I was surprised that he had gone onto the road because there must have been oncoming traffic, and it must have been dangerous.
“But I’m very proud of him, especially when he told me that one of the drivers was a pregnant lady, because there were two lives at risk.”
Ashvin’s sister, Miss Laavanya Gunasegaran, 25, was just as proud.
The early-childhood teacher posted about her brother’s bravery and selflessness on Facebook. The post has since received more than 200 likes and has been shared over 1,800 times.
The driver of the black car contacted Miss Laavanya yesterday through a friend on Facebook to thank Ashvin for his kindness and bravery.
She said she was grateful his family had raised a fine and helpful boy.
Madam Helen said: “Ashvin kept on telling me yesterday how he was concerned about the pregnant lady and how he hoped that she and her baby were okay.”
Other good samaritans
DEC 16, 2015
Two men were trapped inside the cabin of a lorry that had overturned on its side after crashing into a car near the junction of Sengkang East and Buangkok East Drive.
Petroleum surveyor Arief Budiman, 28, and his friend used their car to block oncoming traffic, then used an iron bar to break the windscreen of the lorry to rescue the occupants.
JULY 30, 2014
Accounts manager Kelvin Seo, 29, was heading home to Woodlands on his motorcycle around 7pm when he lost consciousness after an apparent hit-and-run accident on the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE).
When he regained consciousness, he found himself in an ambulance.
He later found out that other motorists had stopped to tend to him as he lay injured on the BKE for about half-an-hour.
OCT 23, 2013
A tipper truck went out of control on the Ayer Rajah Expressway, turned on its side and landed on a taxi at about 8.50am.
The taxi driver, Mr Ng Kim Beng, 46, and his passenger, Mr Vincent Ng Say Ho, 28, were trapped in the vehicle.
Several motorists stopped to help them. They used their bare hands to remove debris such as glass and metal.
A passer-by also stopped to comfort the driver and prayed with him.
MAY 30, 2012
Technician Muhammad Farhan Yusof, 24, was heading home after work when his motorcycle collided with an SMRT bus on the Pan Island Expressway just before 6pm. The collision sliced off his right leg just above the knee.
Eight men stepped up to help Mr Farhan. They tried to slow the bleeding by elevating Mr Farhan’s right thigh. One eventually managed to stop the bleeding with a tourniquet.
This article was first published on June 2, 2016.
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