All about safety - NEWS-Another drowning

Six-year-old girl's death in hotel pool at Sentosa is the fourth such in a week

Jasmine Yin
jasmine@mediacorp.com.sg

A SIX-year-old girl on a weekend family outing to Sentosa drowned in a hotel swimming pool, making it the fourth drowning in Singapore in a week.

At 5.11 pm on Saturday, the kindergarten student was pulled out unconscious from the 1.3-m deep pool at the Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa Resort by a hotel guest, who had alerted the lifeguards.

Resuscitation measures were administered on the girl, who was taken to hospital by an ambulance within 15 minutes, according to the hotel's statement to Today.

The girl, identified as Lim Pei Er, was pronounced dead at 7.20 pm.

She had been swimming with her parents, three-year-old brother and three other relatives at Siloso beach when the weather turned grey. The group decided to go swimming at the hotel, Mr Lim, who is the girl's father, told the Chinese evening dailies yesterday.

Mr Lim, a tutor, said that his daughter was very excited and ran ahead of the group, apparently not having heard her parents' instructions against doing so. She could not be seen when the group arrived at the hotel pool shortly after.

The group, who split up to search for Pei Er, rushed to the pool after learning that a female child was being pulled out.

The tragic turn of events took place "too quickly" in less than 10 minutes and the family cannot accept what happened, Mr Lim reportedly said.

He also questioned why the tragedy was not averted, as there were people present at the scene.

It is the first such drowning in the hotel's 14-year history.

According to Rasa Sentosa, it was "unclear how the child wandered into the premises of the hotel unaccompanied", as the family were not residents at the hotel.

The hotel also stressed that despite the unfortunate incident, it has safety and security measures in place. The police are investigating.

This is the latest in a recent string of drowning incidents. Last Sunday, Indian national Mohd Burhan Khoka, 34, died after his rented kayak capsized at the Lower Seletar Reservoir. A day later, the body of Madam Gurdev Kaur, an Indian woman in her 60s, was found floating near the vicinity. On Wednesday, a man's body was fished out from the waters of Kallang River.

The National Water Safety Council announced last Tuesday that it plans to review legislation and building standards for swimming pools and water bodies.

At least 12 people have drowned since January and some 3,300 lives have been lost in water-related mishaps since 1960.

But statistics from the Singapore Life Saving Society show that the number of deaths by drowning has dropped in recent years.

There were 42 drownings in 2004, 39 in 2005 and 23 last year. The majority of these deaths — 41 per cent — occurred at beaches or at sea.