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More details have emerged in the wake of yesterday’s tragic incident, where a secondary school boy drowned in the waters off East Coast Park. According to The Straits Times, it was housewife Silvia Hajas who helped save three of the boys in the group from drowning. The 47-year-old mother, who takes part in triathlons, was at East Coast Park’s Area E around noon with her eight-year-old daughter yesterday.
She took a panoramic photo of the sea view — an image that captured seven boys swimming about 50m away from the shoreline — and initially assumed they were playing in the water. But then she heard the cries of help, saw that the current had dragged them out further to sea, and dived into the choppy waters to save them.
Out of the group of seven, three boys managed to swim back on their own, so Hajas made her way to the boy closest to her to pull him away from danger, and returned to rescue another boy. At 1.7m in height, even she couldn’t stand on the sea bed where the boys were. But, as exhausted as she was, she still headed back to search for the two remaining boys.
Thankfully, a couple saw the scene unfolding and located a rescue float. The man leapt into the water to help Hajas, while the lady called the police. It was about 10 minutes after Hajas had taken the picture, around 12.24pm, when the police received a call about a missing person in the waters off Bedok Jetty.
Hajas and the man swam back to shore with the third boy and kept their eyes peeled for the fourth one, but he had been swept underwater and never came back up. Three hours later, around 3.33pm, the body of 12-year-old Muhammad Suhaimi Sabastian was found by the Singapore Civil Defence Force’s (SCDF) Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team.
The Jurongville Secondary School student had gone to East Coast Park with his six friends after their school exam yesterday morning.
Police are currently investigating the unnatural death.
