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She had been in a deep sleep when loud banging on her front doorwoke her up at 7am yesterday. The housewife in her 60s was shocked to see two Singapore CivilDefence Force (SCDF) officers outside her fifth-storey flat. They wanted her to let them into her flat. Thinking they were there to put out a fire, she quickly opened thedoor. Then she learnt that a 49-year-old woman in the unit above hadholed herself up in a room with a pair of scissors and was in astand-off with the authorities. The housewife, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Tan, said theofficers asked to use the window in her bedroom to secure a rescuenet. Mrs Tan said in Mandarin: "I was so nervous and scared. What if thewoman really jumped? "They (the officers) asked to break one of my windows to secure thenet. Eventually, they managed to do it without breaking thewindow." An SCDF spokesman said later that it had received a call at 6.55amabout the woman in a sixth-storey flat at Block 537, Hougang Street52. Two fire engines, two support vehicles and one ambulance weresent. A life pack and a rescue net were also deployed. The woman in the stand-off was identified only as Mrs Loo. When The New Paper arrived at the scene, there were more than adozen police and SCDF officers in the living room of the flat,which belongs to Mrs Loo's sister and brother-in-law. Crowd A small crowd had gathered in the playground beside the block,looking and pointing at the window on the sixth storey. Some residents who were hurrying to work stopped to join the crowd,and the tension was palpable as SCDF officers deployed the lifepack and laid out the rescue net. "We wondered if the woman would jump," a housewife told thisreporter. She was on her way to the market with a group of friends, butdecided to stay at the void deck to see what happened next. Mrs Loo's husband, a 52-year-old Malaysian, said his wife, whosuffers from mental illness, "started blabbering nonsense" and"acted up" at midnight yesterday. He brushed it off as another one of her episodes. But she would notstop talking and he spent the next few hours trying to calm her. The trouble began at 5am when Mrs Loo went to the toilet. She thentook a pair of scissors and locked herself in an unoccupiedbedroom. A commotion ensued, waking neighbours in the block, including MrsTan. After an hour trying to persuade her to come out, Mr Loo called thepolice. Mrs Loo's brother-in-law, Mr Yeo Mui Kwang, 56, had gone to acoffee shop nearby when his wife called him to return. He then spent the next two hours outside the locked bedroom tryingto convince Mrs Loo to come out. At about 9.20am, almost 21/2 hours after the stand-off started,screams were heard from the flat, followed by loud banging. Police officers had broken down the bedroom door. A minute later, Mrs Loo emerged, escorted by officers from thepolice's Special Operations Command. She appeared distraught and kept saying in Mandarin she was "inpain" and that the "pain was everywhere". A police spokesman said the woman was arrested for attemptedsuicide. Mr Loo said his wife is unemployed. The couple have no children andlive in Malaysia. Mr Loo would only say that he works on Jurong Island and travelshere every day, bringing his wife along at times. He declined tosay more about his job. He had brought her here on Wednesday night to get medical treatmentat the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) the next day. IMH is less than a 10-minute drive from her sister's home. But Mrs Loo's meltdown occurred before the couple could make thetrip. SCDF said the woman had no visible injuries and was not sent to ahospital. On April 13, a man attempting suicide jumped from the window of hisninth-storey flat at Block 852, Woodlands Street 83. He was saved by a rescue net set up by SCDF officers and was laterarrested for attempted suicide. Helplines SAMARITANS OF SINGAPORE: 1800-221-4444 CARE CORNER MANDARIN COUNSELLING CENTRE: 1800-353-5800 SINGAPORE ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH: 1800-283-7019. I am an expert from led-floodlighting.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China High Power LEDs , Rechargeable LED Floodlight Manufacturer, T8 LED Light Tube,and more.
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