A coroner for the case where an elderly fatally hit his head after reversing out of a mis-levelled lift landing revealed that HDB service calls made by the public are sometimes treated as prank calls.
“When the repair personnel did not find a mislevelling fault, the incident would then be dismissed as a prank call or repairs would be effected on other parts of the lift. The mislevelling would therefore not be addressed.”
Coroner Marvin Bay was addressing to questions why Pasir Ris-Punggol PAP Town Council did not repair the lift when they received several repair calls from residents for months prior to the accident. The coroner called for town councils to take feedback more seriously and stop assuming repair calls are prank calls even when the fault was not replicated:
“Estate management and lift repair personnel should also play their part in presuming that the calls they get about lift faults are genuine and deserving of further investigation, even if the fault is not immediately evident when the lift is inspected.”
On 15 May 2016, 77-year-old Lim Hang Chiang was reversing his motorised wheelchair out from Lift A of Block 247 at Pasir Ris Street 21. Not realising there was a 13cm height difference, the elderly fell and hit his head on the floor. The impact caused internal brain bleeding and the elderly died the next day. Prior to the accidents, residents complained that they have already seen and reported to the PAP Town Council the same mis-levelling fault several times.
There has been no compensation or apology from Pasir Ris-Punggol PAP Town Council.