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Man collapses, dies on SBS bus

A man collapsed and died on board an SBS bus on Monday after suffering breathing difficulties.
 
Ho Soo Kim, 62, a certified Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner, was seated on the upper deck of SBS bus service number 8, on his way to Tampines.

A witness who was seated behind Ho said that he saw him having difficulty breathing, and then collapsing, which was when he informed the bus driver and called the police.
 
A police spokesman confirmed that they received a call at around 6:10pm requesting assistance along Ubi Avenue 2, near A-Z Building.
 
Paramedics pronounced Ho dead at the scene.
 
Ho’s death came as a shock to his siblings, who told The New Paper that the 62-year-old had never been hospitalised in his life.
 
For Ho’s sister, housewife Ho Siew Eng, 73, the news did not register at first.
 
“My brother told me Soo Kim had ‘gone’. I asked him, ‘Gone where?’ He didn’t answer at first, so I thought Soo Kim had gone for a walk, or a holiday.
 
“Then he told me. I was so shocked.”
 
She last saw her younger brother and their five other siblings on Saturday at a family gathering. She said that he looked happy and was laughing and joking as per normal.
 
One of Ho’s younger brothers, odd-job worker S Y Ho, 51, who shared a rented three-room flat in Potong Pasir with him, said that his brother suffered from high blood pressure, and complained of chest pains and dizziness a few weeks before his death.
 
“We figured that since he did TCM, he would know how to take care of himself. But we know he did go to a doctor recently and took medicine for high blood pressure,” he said of his older brother, who used to help out three times a week at the Red Swastika Charity Foundation in Tampines.
 
Police have classified the case as an unnatural death and investigations are ongoing.