just to add sketchy details: on febuary 20th: TWO minutes.
That was all it took for two men to turn violent, allegedly
attacking a driver whose ambulance had blocked their car.
The attack lasted more than 20 minutes, said witnesses.
The two men allegedly rained blows on the ambulance driver's chest,
kicked his groin and tore his uniform, all the while spewing
vulgarities.
The ambulance was outside a carpark lot while the driver was
helping a patient to a kidney dialysis centre on Saturday
afternoon.
Mr Sivachandran Muragasu, 28, nurse service director of Abella
Agency, an ambulance and home nursing company, had taken the
patient to the kidney dialysis centre at Block 213 Bukit Batok
Street 21.
He had just helped the patient settle into a chair when he heard a
commotion near the back entrance of the centre.
A man, who looked to be around 50, and another, in his mid-20s,
were shouting at the nurses in the dialysis centre to move the
ambulance.
Mr Siva, who did not see the men in the carpark when he took the
patient to the centre on a stretcher, said the ambulance had been
parked there for around two minutes.
When he returned to the carpark, the men confronted him.
Mr Siva said: "The older man asked me, "What the ****, you think
it's your father's road?""
When Mr Siva asked him why he used the expletive, both men turned
aggressive.
Mr Siva said he fended off their punches by putting his arms in
front of his face, and kept trying to move backwards.
He kept pleading with them, he said. He tried explaining that he
was just doing his job.
Mr Siva said: "I'm driving an ambulance. They should understand
that I'm providing a service."
But the men were not appeased.
Uniform torn
The younger man took hold of the gold chain around Mr Siva's neck
and yanked hard on it.
The force ripped the front of his uniform.
Then both men allegedly held onto the chain and pulled on it
again.
This time, the force caused the chain to snap.
The chain, which was a present from Mr Siva's wife, is worth more
than $1,000.
When he bent over to pick up the chain, the men started kicking his
groin.
Mr Siva said: "It was so painful. I felt dizzy."
Another ambulance driver came to his aid and tried to stop the
fight, but the men continued hurling verbal abuse at him even after
the police arrived.
The ruckus drew a crowd of more than 30 onlookers.
Others were peering out of flats in the blocks nearby.
Some were shouting at the men to stop hitting MrSiva.
One of the neighbours, administrative clerk Yana Minhat, 26, said:
"I really pity the ambulance driver. He just wanted to do his work.
I was so angry to see the (two men) bullying him, I shouted at them
from my third-floor flat."
She said Mr Siva kept apologising to the two men, and had asked
them to forget the issue.
But the men continued to beat him, and even hit his face.
She said: "When they punched his face, I saw the shock on his face.
You could tell that he wanted to beat them back, but he was
controlling himself.
"I thought he would punch them back, but he kept telling them "Sua"
(Hokkien for "Let's forget it")."
Mrs Yana, who has been a neighbour of the two men for more than 20
years, called the police to intervene.
Mrs Yana said: "It's not right. He was just doing his job."
She said of the men: "Their faces had changed, and the (men) were
very agitated. I think many people in the crowd were scared to get
involved."
A woman, said to be the wife of one of the men, was following
them.
When Mrs Yana shouted at her to stop her husband, the latter tried
pulling his hand.
He stopped only when his wife hugged him and tried to pull him
away, said Mrs Yana.
She said: "He was so angry, he almost punched his wife when she did
that. They were gila (Malay for mad). All this over a parking
issue."
She said Mr Siva's ambulance is not the only one to wait at that
spot. There is one ambulance there every 15 to 20 minutes, said Mrs
Yana.
Mrs Yana added that the men could have driven their car out of the
lot if they were in a hurry.
She said: "The space wasn't that tight. They could still get out of
the lot. It is only a little inconvenient because they would have
to do a U-turn to get out of the carpark."
A police spokesman said they received a call around 1pm on Saturday
informing them of a dispute.
Police officers then advised each party on their legal
recourse.
Mr Siva said: "They acted just like hooligans. They used
vulgarities, and said things like "Do you know who I am?".
"I can't imagine what would have happened if the patient was with
me."
Mr Siva, who has to go to the kidney dialysis centre every day,
parks in the same spot whenever he has to take a patient there. He
has been providing this service for two years.
He said: "I'm glad I managed to maintain my cool. I might look
fierce, but I'm soft-spoken and approachable. If I weren't that
way, I wouldn't be a nurse."
Mr Siva said he was shouting at the men to stop hitting him, but he
insisted that he had not retaliated.
"I did not lift a finger to hurt them."
While he did not suffer any internal bleeding from the fight, Mr
Siva said he feels pain in his groin, which swelled up after the
attack.
He asked his brother to take him to a hospital, where he was given
painkillers.
What was baffling, said Mr Siva, was why the men could not have
waited a few minutes for him to come out.
He said: "If they are so impatient, how can they wait at traffic
light junctions?"
Left keys in ambulance
He added that he had parked his ambulance in such a way that if the
driver wanted to, he could have manoeuvred his car out of the
lot.
Also, he had left the keys in the ambulance so that other drivers
could move the ambulance if they were in a hurry.
Although the handicapped lot was empty, he did not park there in
case a handicapped driver needed to use it, said Mr Siva.
If Mr Siva had been a Singapore Civil Defence Force ambulance
driver, his alleged attackers could face four years in jail, or a
fine, or both, for assaulting or using criminal force on a public
servant.
Mr Siva, who was back at work yesterday, said that he will be
carrying on with his job as usual.
"My job is not an ordinary job. There should be more tolerance
towards us. It's not like I'm delivering bread.
"In foreign countries, people immediately give way to ambulances.
But in Singapore, people think they own the road."
look here: the police can ADVISE BOTH PARTIES? CANT ARREST? HECK,
THOSE HOOLIGANS WOULD HAVE GONE FREE IF NOT FOR THE VICTIM WHO
PRESSED CHARGES!
