Sep 2, 2008
SMU prof catches girl who fell from 2nd storey By Seow Kai Lun A
TRIP to the shopping mall on Friday turned into a rescue mission
for a 43-year-old professor from the Singapore Management
University (SMU).
Dr Norman Li expected to have lunch, but not to catch a small
child as she fell from the second storey in the [email protected]
Square.
Dr Li and his wife, Ruth, were coming down the second floor
escalator when they saw a girl of about six inching her way up on
the outer ledge of the moving stairs.
By the time they got to the first floor, the little girl was
three quarters of the way up.
Feeling uneasy, Dr Li positioned himself underneath in case she
fell.
And fall she did, when she collided with a glass pane at the top
of the escalator which prevented her from getting off the
ledge.
'She landed in my arms, but then bounced off,' said Dr Li. 'She
then hit the floor, and started crying.'
The whole time, a silent crowd had gathered near the escalator
at the [email protected]
Square. There was a collective gasp when she fell.
As she slipped from his grasp and hit her head on the ground,
her mother, who had been watching, rushed forward and picked up her
crying child, said Dr Li.
'I told the mother that she should get her to see a doctor. She
said something, picked up her child and left the shopping centre,'
he said.
The crowd dispersed and the unidentified mother and daughter
were gone by the time security guards got to the scene.
