Channel NewsAsia - Friday,
January 11
Woman arrested
for attempted suicide at Benjamin Sheares
Bridge
SINGAPORE: The Benjamin Sheares Bridge was the scene of a massive
traffic jam Thursday evening as police patrol boats and an
amphibious vehicle stood by in the waters below.
The reason for the spectacle? A woman sitting on the railing and
refusing to budge from her position for nearly two hours.
The police closed a lane and set up a cordon of a few hundred
metres along the footpath on the bridge as officers moved in to
talk her into coming down.
The unidentified woman, in her early 50s, had climbed onto the
railing on the side of the road towards Changi Airport shortly
before 5.45pm.
The sight of her barefooted and clad in a yellow Tshirt and
creamcoloured Capri pants dangerously perched on the railing also
attracted a large crowd of onlookers 35m below at the Kallang River
bank behind the Costa Rhu condominium.
Eyewitnesses said she was gesturing furiously several times. A
group of people canoeing in the Kallang Basin returned to shore
after spotting the woman.
Patrol boats from the Police Coast Guard and an amphibious vehicle
from the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) were on standby in
the river basin.
The twohour standoff resulted in a massive traffic jam that
extended to Keppel Bridge on the Ayer Rajah Expressway.
At about 8pm, the woman relented. Taking the hand of a police
officer, she climbed over the railing and was immediately pulled to
safety by SCDF officers from the Disaster Assistance and Rescue
Team.
A police spokesman said the woman has been arrested for attempted
suicide. TODAY/yb
