Van Pinned Elderly Woman After Reversing More than 5m into Crowded Tuas Eatery

Always be aware of your surroundings, regardless of whether you’re crossing the road, using your friend’s toilet or eating lunch in a crowded coffeeshop.

After all, you never know when a van will pull a reverse card and hurtle straight into the crowd, instead of a parking space.

Van Pinned Elderly Woman After Reversing More than 5m into Crowded Tuas Eatery

According to TODAYonline, a van reversed into a coffee shop at Tuas at lunchtime earlier today (12 March 2021), crashing into several tables and a stall and injuring at least two people.

It also broke through a brick divider and pinned an elderly woman in her shop.

According to the news report, the incident took place at Canteen Chuang Hock at Gul Street 3 at around 12:40 p.m.

Numerous patrons were reportedly having their meals when a van came out of nowhere and reversed into the crowd.

Mr Kelvin Lim, an engineer in his 30s, was one of them.

Apparently, he had heard a loud screeching sound, and caught sight of a silver van hurtling into the eatery.

It also happened to be charging right towards him.

Thankfully, the van stopped around a metre short, and Mr Lim managed to escape with no injuries.

Pinned

However, the same can’t be said about several others.

“But there was one guy who was pushed and dragged on the floor by the tables that the vehicle hit. It happened very quickly because the van was accelerating,” said Mr Lim.

The van ended up driving more than five metres into the premises, destroying a brick divider in the process and pinning an elderly woman in her fruit stall.

She had to be placed on a stretcher, and was subsequently sent to hospital via an ambulance. A male customer, who was reportedly bleeding from his scrapes, was also ferried to hospital the same way.

In total, three people were taken to the hospital.

According to Mr Lim, bystanders, though initially shocked, responded quickly to help the injured individuals.

Cooperation

Meanwhile, the driver, who appears to be in his 50s, was said to be cooperative, and had checked on the injured individuals.

He reportedly passed his contact details to another driver – whose parked car he had hit.

For the record, reversing-related accidents are not exactly golden rare.

In 2020, a lady and a child were knocked down when a car reversed into them.

Both the pedestrians had their eyes to the left as the car reversed in from the right.

Thankfully, the pedestrians appeared fine after they were knocked down, though the lady did show her frustration by whacking the car with an umbrella.

And in 2019, over in China, a pregnant woman and her sister were about to reach their destination when the dreaded parking segment came.

As her sister did not know how to reverse park properly, she asked for her pregnant sister’s assistance to guide her into the lot.

Her pregnant sister promptly got out of the car and stood behind it, in a bid to issue instructions.

She gave her sister the “go” sign to reverse, but instead of stepping on the brake pedal, the driver stepped on the accelerator pedal.

The car ended up reversing at full speed and hit the pregnant woman with a loud bang, causing her to fall to the ground.

She was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

As such, always be careful of your surroundings. And if you are assisting with reverse parking, always make sure that you’re positioned out of harm’s way.

Accidents do happen, so please remember to always take precautionary risks in regards to such things.

Featured Image: Google Maps