A man in his 50s was discovered unconscious on the MacRitchie Nature Trail in the vicinity of Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) on Saturday (Aug 12). The Singapore Civil Defence Force received a call for help around 11:05am and dispatched a fire bike and an ambulance to 240 Sime Road — the address of SICC.
The man was subsequently brought to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, where he passed away. It is believed that he suffered from cardiac arrest, reported The Straits Times.
According to ST, another jogger spotted the man lying on a patch of grass beside the running path. He approached the man with a female jogger, but they found that he was completely unresponsive.
While waiting for an ambulance to arrive, another family came over to render assistance. The wife happened to be a former nurse, and she propped him up to a recovery position, allowing him to breathe.
But a couple minutes later, the man stopped breathing, and so they started compressions. The group also called for an SICC buggy that happened to pass by to get an AED (automated external defibrillator). The man was still unconscious when the ambulance arrived.
According to Kenneth Ng, a cardiologist from the Novena Heart Centre, when someone comes across a patient having a heart attack, an ambulance should be called immediately. If the patient is unconscious, cardiopulmonary resuscitation should be administered; if the patient is conscious, he/she should be put in a recovery position to allow him/her to breathe without choking.
