Teen KTV hostess partially-paralysed after fall during raid
Malaysian teen partially paralysed after falling from The Verge mall during police raid. Mum asks...
She was apparently resting in the stairwell of The Verge minutes before the police raided a nightclub in the Little India mall.
Moments later, the teenager was seen lying at the foot of the building with serious injuries.
A month after Miss Yeoh Huey Yuan, 19, fell, the sequence of events still remains a mystery to her mother, Madam Ng Yoke Peng, 49.
Miss Yeoh, a Malaysian, was found unconscious at the foot of The Verge at Serangoon Road In the wee hours of Oct 3.
She was discovered during a raid at Grand Oasis Nightclub KTV in the building. Three women were arrested for employment-related offences, a police spokesman said.
Madam Ng, a housewife, told The New Paper yesterday in a phone interview from the northern Malaysian state of Penang: "My daughter's friend recently told me that Huey Yuan was at the stairwell resting and eating a few minutes before the raid.
"I'm really hoping someone will get to the bottom of this."
It is not clear if Miss Yeoh was trying to escape during the raid.
The fall, believed to be from a window on The Verge's second storey, left her in bad shape.
While she has regained consciousness, her left brain cells are dead; the right side of her body is paralysed after a stroke; she has memory loss; and she cannot speak due to a tracheostomy - a surgically-made hole that goes through the front of the neck and into the trachea.
She is now recuperating in Hospital Pulau Pinang, a public hospital in Penang.
"Huey Yuan is starting to recognise people. She was crying initially, but now she smiles and is a lot more energetic.
"So that's something positive. But she still can't talk due to the tracheal tube," said Madam Ng, who has an older daughter, 24, and younger son, 13.
She said her second daughter had started work as a nightclub hostess at The Verge a week before the incident.
On Oct 6, Madam Ng and her husband were told the bad news in a call from the police - their daughter was in the intensive care unit at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).
The police spokesman said the Royal Malaysian Police had to be roped in to identify the 19-year-old as she did not have any identification on her.
"She was released to the care of the NOK (next-of-kin) on Oct 12," the spokesman added.
STRONG WILL
Madam Ng's heart sank when she learnt of her daughter's injuries.
Due to a ruptured spleen, Miss Yeoh needed eight bags of blood transfused to her, she said.
She also smashed her pelvis and fractured her skull, left cheek and left leg.
"The doctors at TTSH said Huey Yuan's strong will helped her to survive," Madam Ng said quietly.
Miss Yeoh spent a month at TTSH before she was transferred to Hospital Pulau Pinang on Tuesday night with the help of non-profit group St. John Ambulance of Malaysia.
While Miss Yeoh is making good recovery, finances are tight for the Yeohs as her month-long stay in TTSH had cost $9,597.
Madam Ng said she would be coming to Singapore next week to settle part of the hospital bill.
She is grateful for the care shown to her by TTSH's medical staff while her daughter was hospitalised there.
"But I'm most grateful to the social worker who was with me the whole time I was in Singapore. She helped tide me over some of the darkest days of my life," Madam Ng said.
Huey Yuan is starting to recognise people. She was crying initially, but now she smiles and is a lot more energetic. So that's something positive.
- Madam Ng Yoke Peng, whose 19-year-old daughter, Huey Yuan, was found injured at the foot of The Verge last month
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