Man falls out of lift burning from PMD fire, dies from injuries

A burning 20-year-old man fell out from lift when his personal mobility device caught fire on June 3. Residents on the second-storey Block 537 Woodlands Drive 16 tried to save him, using buckets of water to douse the flames while hoping for authorities to arrive and help.

Rescue officers arrived to find the fire out, but the man grievously injured. He died the next day in the hospital from burns.

What happened to the man with the PMD burning in a lift?

Residents scrambled to help a burning man who fell out of a lift in Block 537 Woodlands Drive 16. Inside the lift, the man’s PMD had caught on fire.

When rescuers had arrived at the scene, residents had already doused the fire in the lift and on the man. Rescuers rushed him to Khoo Teck Puat hospital, where he died from his injuries the next day, June 4.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said in a Facebook post on Friday that it was alerted to the fire at about 11.25pm on Thursday, and took the man to the hospital.

The post read,

At about 11.25pm last night, SCDF responded to a fire on the second floor of Block 537 Woodlands Drive 16.

The fire involved a Personal Mobility Device (PMD) in a lift and was extinguished by members of the public using buckets of water prior to SCDF’s arrival.

SCDF conveyed a person to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital for severe burn injuries. About 90 residents from the affected block were evacuated by the Police as a precautionary measure.

Preliminary investigation into the cause of the fire indicates that it was of electrical origin from a Personal Mobility Device (PMD).

Some of the residents told stories of what happened.

A 68-year-old retiree said that in the middle of praying, she heard a loud commotion. Upon checking, she saw that the lift was on fire, said a report from The Straits Times.

The video below shows the distressing series of events.

The video above shows a horrifying red tinge coming from lift area. Thick smoke obscures the stairs, and the light goes on and off.

Another account from Sembawang MP Vikram Nair said that 90 residents had been evacuated at the time of the incident.

Read about Raybe Oh Siew, who sustained massive burns after trying to free her boyfriend from the burning BMW Tanjong Pagar crash.

Police investigations continued, and they determined that the fire was created because of an electrical problem involving a PMD.

Friends of the deceased said that he wsa a very kind man who helped deliver meals to needy residents during Ramadan in 2018 and 2019.

“I remember him as a kind, gentle boy – A. On his PMD, he helped me deliver biryani to needy residents in Woodlands during Ramadan in 2018 and 2019.” said Armin Armin in a Facebook post.

He also urged that people would dispose of their PMD property, in particularly models that have not been certified.