Court rules death of woman hit by LRT train as accidental
A court has found that the death of a woman run over by an automated LRT train at Cove station on the Punggol East LRT loop was the result of an accidental fall.
On March 23, 2023, after a dinner with colleagues, senior accounting executive Wong Soon Heng, 33, took a train home but was later seen walking towards a gap between fixed glass barriers at Cove station.
According to CCTV footage, she then steadily increased her pace until she appeared to be running through the gap and fell onto the track.
In his findings dated Aug 8, State Coroner Adam Nakhoda said: “Based on the evidence collected, it was not possible to determine why Madam Wong ended up walking and then running towards the gap.
“However, it was clear that no one around her had pushed or caused her to move in the manner that she did.”
He added that there was insufficient time for the other passengers to help the Malaysian woman get off the track, and an oncoming unmanned, automated LRT train ran over her.
Madam Wong, a Singapore permanent resident and mother of a one-year-old boy, suffered severe injuries, including abdominal wounds.
She was pronounced dead at the station at 10.15pm on the same day.
Describing the death as a tragic accident, State Coroner Nakhoda said there was no evidence that Madam Wong had wanted to take her own life, and her death was the result of an accidental fall.
While she had earlier drunk a small amount of wine during dinner, a doctor found that the low concentration of ethanol in her body neither caused nor contributed to her death.
The state coroner added that there were no records to show that she suffered from any significant chronic medical condition or mental illness.
Court documents stated that she married her husband in October 2020 and their son was born on Feb 24, 2022.
Her spouse said she was physically and mentally well after their son’s birth. To his recollection, she never had any fainting or dizzy spells, and had not complained of having them.
He told investigators that in the weeks before her death, she appeared to be happy that she managed to secure a new job at an accounting firm that allowed her to spend more time at home with their child.
Madam Wong had joined the company on March 13, 2023, and its director described her as a hard-working, punctual and fast worker.
On the day of the tragedy, she had dinner with her colleagues at a Bukit Pasoh restaurant, and one of them saw her drink less than a glass of wine. When the meal ended at around 9pm, she returned to her office near Clarke Quay to take her laptop home.
Madam Wong lived in Punggol, and CCTV footage showed she was among a group of people who walked out of an LRT train at Cove station at 10pm.
State Coroner Nakhoda said: “I found that having exited the (train), Madam Wong’s movement was unusual. She did not appear to turn right to walk down the stairs from the platform to the gantry level.
“Instead, she continued to walk across the platform towards the side of the platform for LRT trains travelling in the direction of Punggol LRT.”
She later fell onto the track. A male fellow passenger told investigators that he was walking down a flight of stairs nearby when he heard a “yelp and a thud sound”.
He did not hear anyone asking for help or groaning in pain, and had initially assumed that somebody had dropped a suitcase.
Out of curiosity, he went to the platform, peered through a gap between the glass barriers and saw Madam Wong lying face up on the track.
The man noticed that her eyes were open, but she was “frozen still”. A train then ran over her before he could react. He alerted the police soon after.
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