SINGAPORE: A lift technician whose negligence contributed to a construction worker bleeding to death in a lift shaft was jailed for five months on Monday (Dec 11).
Wong Ser Yong, a 34-year-old Malaysian, pleaded guilty to one count of a negligent act contributing to the death of Mr Hossain Mohammad Sahid under the Workplace Safety and Health Act.
The court heard that Wong was a lift technician for TK Elevator, which was hired by the managing agent of a seven-storey building at 450 North Bridge Road to repair loose panels in the interior of a passenger lift.
TK in turn hired Decor Engineering, a lift contractor registered with the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), to perform the panel repair works.
Mr Hossain, 29, was employed by Decor as a construction worker and was not a trained lift technician.
On the morning of Feb 27, 2021, Wong met Mr Hossain and his colleague at the building to repair the lift’s interior panel.
Mr Hossain and his colleague were tasked by their project manager to tighten the loose interior panels, while Wong was to provide the two Decor workers access to the work area and to control the positioning of the lift.
The lift had been shut down by another technician, and was positioned between the first and second levels. When the trio got to the lift lobby on the second floor, Wong opened the lift landing door and claimed that the lift was in “Inspection” mode.
FAULTY BUTTON
He tested the “up” and “down” buttons on the lift control box and realised that the “up” button was faulty as it had been jammed.
When Wong told Mr Hossain about the faulty button, Mr Hossain asked if Wong could control the lift from the lift motor room on the rooftop.
Mr Hossain also suggested communicating through their mobile phones, with Mr Hossain telling Wong “up” or “down” to move the lift and “oop” to stop it.
Wong agreed and headed to the motor room while Mr Hossain went to the top of the lift car.
At about 11am, Wong informed Mr Hossain that he would switch the lift to “Inspection” mode first, before Mr Hossain switched it to “Normal” mode.
However, shortly after giving this instruction, Wong heard Mr Hossain shouting loudly over the phone.
Investigations later revealed that Mr Hossain had most likely switched the control box on top of the lift car to “normal” mode before Wong had switched the lift’s controller switch in the lift motor room to “Inspection” mode.
This meant that both modes were in “Normal”, resulting in the lift ascending automatically.
Wong immediately shut down the power of the lift system and went to the building’s third floor, where he saw that Mr Hossain’s left arm had been caught between the lift’s guide rail bracket and the edge of the lift car.
Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers arrived at the scene at 11.40am to begin a rescue operation.
According to a coroner’s inquiry held in May last year, SCDF found that Mr Hossain’s ribcage, left arm and left leg were trapped. There was a deep cut in his left arm, which was bleeding.
SCDF considered various options including amputation to extricate Mr Hossain, but they were impeded by the confined space.
Mr Hossain died at the scene at about 3.45pm.
He was later certified to have died from bleeding due to blunt force trauma to his left arm.
WONG’S FAILURES
The court heard that Wong had a duty to handle all lift operations, including controlling lift movement.
On that day, he was required to do a job hazard analysis, an established safety procedure laid out by TK for technicians, but did not do so.
He was also not aware of the working method that Mr Hossain had been briefed on.
When Wong discovered the faulty “up” button on the car top control box, he should have stopped all works from proceeding, the prosecutor said. The correct procedure would have been to repair the faulty button before starting the panel repair works.
Leaving Mr Hossain alone to work on the top of the lift car was also not in compliance with TK’s safety requirement and internal safety procedures.
Wong also should have prevented any operation of the switches of the lift control, as Mr Hossain was not a competent lift specialist, said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) prosecutor.
Only trained lift technicians should handle the lift operations for the contractor, she said.
Wong admitted that his negligent acts had contributed to Mr Hossain’s death.
For a negligent act contributing to a person’s death in a workplace, he could have been jailed for up to two years, fined up to S$30,000 (US$22,333), or both.