Bridge Under Construction in M’sia Has No Warning Signs; 1YO Toddler Dies After Falling Through Gaping Hole

2019-12-08 , 9:00 am

It’s the school holiday season and parents would usually bring their children on a family vacation somewhere nice for all of them to just chill out and have fun.

And as a child, you would probably always look forward to these because you can truly enjoy yourself without having to worry about school.

Or at least, that’s what I felt when I was much younger.

A family of four from Batu Pahat, Johor decided to head to a district of Penampang since it was known to be very beautiful.

What Happened

On 1 December, they were having a delicious lunch at 3.40pm on the fifth floor of a building at Jalan Bundusan. After some food, the mother decided to bring her two daughters, a three-year-old and a one-year-old, outside the restaurant to play.

This is a common sight even amongst Singaporeans as it’s known that toddlers tend to have a short attention span and would want to move around after sitting for a while.

The mother followed them from behind and watched on happily as her daughters ran towards a bridge that connected to another building with their hands intertwined. Seeing this beautiful scene in front of her, she couldn’t help but take a video of it to keep it as a memory.

At one point, they were all on the bridge and the younger of the two let go of her sister’s hand and ran faster, not knowing what was in front of her.

And that was when she lost her footing and fell through the gaping hole.

Five floors down.

When the mother had processed what had happened, she immediately ran towards the hole and looked through it, only to see her motionless daughter on the concrete ground.

She ran back to the building that they came from so that she could head downstairs to check on her. While doing so, her three-year-old daughter also ran and even fell during the process.

This is seen in the CCTV footage provided.

They called the police and the toddler was rushed to the hospital, but unfortunately, at 4.30pm, the doctors pronounced her dead.

Why Was There A Gaping Hole?

Apparently, this was a bridge that was still under construction.

And for some odd reason, there were no warning signs whatsoever put up by the construction company to indicate this.

According to the family, they did not see any signs put up to caution users about the gaping hole ahead, and the mother commented that she hadn’t noticed the hole either when she was approaching the bridge.

Seeing as to how it seemed like a normal bridge, she let her kids run in front of her, thinking it was all safe since she was there to keep an eye on them anyway.

Who would have thought that a hole that big would be there?

‘She Wasn’t Keeping An Eye On Her Child’

According to a Chinese newspaper, it was implied that the police report stated that the mother had not been keeping an eye on her child, which then led to this unfortunate incident happening.

This came as a shock to the family because nowhere in the police report that they lodged mentioned this point.

The mother even provided the video that she took of her two daughters to prove that she was indeed watching over them.

It is so awful to have somebody manipulate the police report to make it seem like you were the cause of your own child’s death. Why would they even do that?

The Actual Police Report Differs From What Was Implied

The uncle of the deceased toddler stepped up to defend his family and said that the mother was not as irresponsible as suggested.

To prove his point, he even revealed the actual police report that was filed which clearly states that the mother was supervising her children.

It is absolutely heartbreaking that the family lost their youngest one and yet had to deal with allegations of the mother being at fault because she wasn’t supervising her children properly.

As any parent would, I’m sure that she would have stopped her children from even stepping on the bridge if she knew that it was incomplete.

And she probably would have known if there were actually signs put up by the management of the building.

Hopefully, justice will be served. We send our deepest condolences to the family and hope that they will be able to get through this trying time.