"I was walking alone in Fort Canning Park on the night of 5/7/2020. It was the 15th day of the 5th month in the lunar calendar. The moon was shining brightly with enough lighting to walk but not enough to prevent me from getting lost. I made a wrong turn and ended up at a cul de sac near a cemetery next to a huge YMCA building. There was a snapping sound and sharp pain in my right thigh when I took a step.
Instinctively I knew I fractured my right femur from a similar experience more than a decade ago. I fell on my back and when I tried to turn prone to crawl back to the path, bone end rubbed against bone end and all the thigh muscles went into spasm in a ball around the fracture site. My ability to Ren(忍) or put up with the pain was overwhelmed.
I tried to move by kicking with my left leg, and hitching my torso up on my two arms and to get back on the path I had stepped off, hoping to find a stone which I could toss at a third storey window off the YMCA. I doubt I could toss a stone that high and knew there was no way I could make my way down the very steep flight of steps I came up. Knowing I was near my starting point where I thought my dog Hiro and my helper Darmi were waiting, I shouted loudly, “Hiro help, Hiro help, anybody help.” But was met by dead silence. I was not afraid after all this is Singapore where no one can remain lost for long.
I was delighted when a group of policemen turned up with torchlights looking for me. I have never been happier to see our men in navy blue uniforms before. They too were delighted to see me as their task was to find me. When they asked me which hospital I wanted to go to, I replied without hesitation SGH. Not only is SGH, Singapore’s premier hospital I have been treated at SGH over many years. The ambulance crew appeared very promptly and my fracture was immediately immobilised. Once that was done there was no more pain and I was strapped into a stretcher and expertly and promptly transported down the steep steps I had come up at 7 pm. I had fallen at 8 pm and was waiting in the damp dank soil until 2am.
I didn’t realise so many hours have passed and that explains my uncomfortably full bladder. I also had many small black ants crawling all over me. Instead of cursing my bad luck I was grateful to emerge with no more than a fractured femur the outcome could have been much worse. At SGH A&E, by giving my NRIC number it became obvious that I was under Prof Tay Boon Keng, head of orthopedic department who has been the orthopedic surgeon I have been under for many years. His son, head of trauma department operated on my fractured femur and fixed it with a rod. That spared me many weeks on traction and months of rehabilitation. Because of the rod, I could start rehabilitation immediately.
All in all, I thanked my lucky stars. I am grateful to the police who found me, the ambulance staff who immobilised my leg, and took me to hospital, and the doctors and nurses who looked after me while I was warded."