SINGAPORE: The company behind the rope-course activity during a school camp that led to the death of a 15-year-old boy was charged in court on Tuesday (Jan 9) over workplace safety lapses.
Outdoor adventure learning company Camelot was handed one charge under the Workplace Safety and Health Act, along with an employee Liew Foo Loong, a 35-year-old man listed as an “officer” of Camelot in charge sheets.
Both Camelot and Liew face mirroring charges – for their failure in taking necessary measures that caused the death of 15-year-old Jethro Puah Xin Yang.
Jethro was attending an ACS(Independent) camp programme at SAFRA Yishun in 2021. He died after being suspended in a loose harness after falling off a rope course.
Camelot and Liew are accused of failing in three ways. First – Failing to ensure proper training and instruction were provided to instructors on rescue operations if a rope harness becomes loose or unsecured.
Second – failing to ensure adequate supervision in the donning of safety harnesses by participants, and third – failing to ensure the harnesses were properly maintained.
Altogether, these failures caused the death of the boy on Feb 3, 2021, according to charge sheets.
Both Liew and a representative for the company did not give an indication of how they would plead.
The cases will be heard again in February.
The fresh chargings come after the instructor in charge of the rope course that day indicated he would plead guilty to his charge.
Muhammad Nurul Hakim Mohamed Din, 23, was the dispatcher of the Canopy Sky Walk rope course. He faces a charge of a rash act not amounting to culpable homicide by failing to ensure that Jethro’s leg straps were properly buckled and adjusted before sending him onto the rope course.
Jetrho died from multi-organ failure after his neck was compressed and he suffered traumatic asphyxia. He was suspended in the loose harness after falling off the rope course and his leg straps became completely unbuckled, according to Nurul’s charge sheet.
In the aftermath, the Ministry of Education suspended outdoor activities involving heights for all schools, with height-based activities resuming only in February 2023 at a lower capacity.