Family may never know how he died
Mon, Sep 05, 2011 | The New Paper
By Desmond Ng
In January 2009, Mr Li Changrun's nine-year-old son, Li Yun, died when he was hit by a tipper lorry at a zebra crossing.

After a five-day inquiry, the coroner's court made its ruling last week: it was unclear how he was hit and the exact location of impact could not be determined.

For Mr Li and his family, it means they will have to continue to live with the uncertainty over what actually happened that fateful day.

Mr Li, 44, who is originally from Nanjing, China, said his family has suffered much emotional trauma since the accident.

The researcher at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, came to Singapore in 1997 and is now a citizen.

His wife is a homemaker.

Their three children, including Li Yun, were born here.

The oldest, a daughter, is 15 now, and the youngest, a son, IS eight. Li Yun was the middle child.

Mr Li's mother-in-law, Madam Wang Qiying, 69, who was also here for three years to take care of her grandchildren, has since returned to Nanjing.

She was too distraught over the accident because she was there when it happened.

"She's very affected by the accident, and my father-in-law too. He fell sick after the accident and was hospitalised for six months," said Mr Li.

His father-in-law, who has also returned to Nanjing, is 70 years old.

Mr Li said that on the day of the accident, Madam Wang had gone to fetch his daughter, then 12, and Li Yun from Pei Tong Primary School, which is unusual.

He said: "Usually, the two older children will go home on their own.

"And my mother-in-law will fetch the youngest one from the kindergarten."

On that day, the trio were supposed to wait for Li Yun's younger brother, aged five then, to finish his classes in kindergarten.

But Li Yun was impatient about having to wait 20 minutes for his younger brother, and told his grandmother that he wanted to go home first to read his books.

Their flat in Clementi West Street 2 was only three bus stops away from the kindergarten.

Madam Wang agreed, but less than a minute later, the little boy was run over by a tipper lorry coming from the right as he walked ahead of her across the crossing.

The lorry was between her and the boy when he was hit.

Mr Li, who was at work, said he received a call from the police informing him of the accident. He rushed to the National University Hospital (NUH), but his son had died.

The coroner's court said the boy doubled back to the zebra crossing on the slip road of Commonwealth Avenue West around 4.45pm on Jan 19, 2009.

State Coroner Victor Yeo said the Primary 4 pupil either walked or ran into the rear right tyres of the tipper lorry as it was driving by.

Three passers-by near the crossing only saw the aftermath - the severely injured boy lying on the road with his legs trapped between the rear tyres.

Accident reconstruction expert Christopher Marks said in court that it was very unlikely the vehicle was speeding.

If it was, any frontal impact would have flung the boy forward and not dragged him backwards, he said.

All three witnesses at the crossing seconds earlier also testified that the lorry had stopped for them.

Li Yun was rushed to NUH, but died from multiple injuries an hour later.

The tipper lorry driver, Mr Tan Ah Kee, was charged in April 2009 with causing the boy's death by failing to give way at a zebra crossing. He was subsequently granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal.

The prosecution will generally not revive a charge once a discharge not amounting to an acquittal is entered.

This article was first published in The New Paper.