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A girl who fell and died in January in a multi-story parking lot was riding her friend’s fixed gear bike down a slope in the building, police investigations revealed.
These bikes generally do not have a handbrake.
The 13-year-old had started learning to ride a bike only when she was in 6th grade and was still a novice at cycling, the state coroner was told yesterday during an investigation into her death.
The girl was found immobile on the ground in the multi-story parking lot at Block 526A Pasir Ris Street 51 on the afternoon of January 8. She was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.
The Chinese-language newspaper Shin Min Daily News reported that a domestic worker, who saw the girl lying at the foot of the building after hearing a loud noise, called the Singapore Civil Defense Force and the police.
Investigations showed the girl and her classmates had gone to the parking lot after school on the day of the incident, Assistant Police Superintendent Gabriel Goh told the court.
The girl watched her friends ride fixed gear bikes on the sixth and seventh levels of the multi-story parking lot and then tried to do so as well, she said.
Investigations revealed that a friend initially accompanied the girl on foot while she was cycling, ASP Goh said. The friend said the girl had trouble controlling the bike when it was first ridden.
The friend couldn’t keep up after the girl started pedaling down the ramp from the seventh to the sixth level of the building.
The friend asked the girl to turn right, but she continued straight onto the metal railing at the side of the parking lot and collided with her, ASP Goh said.
The court heard that she was expelled from the building. She grabbed onto the railing “momentarily” but could not support herself and fell.
The girl suffered multiple injuries, including fractures to her skull and ribs. An autopsy revealed that the pattern of her injuries matched those resulting from a fall from a height, ASP Goh said.
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