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Suspected drink driving accident at Tanjong Pagar Road leaves 4 injured

Paramedics seen assisting injured pedestrians along Tanjong Pagar Road on Thursday (7 December) evening. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)
Paramedics seen assisting injured pedestrians along Tanjong Pagar Road on Thursday (7 December) evening. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)

By Wong Casandra and Nicholas Yong

An accident involving a car, a truck and a taxi along Tanjong Pagar Road on Thursday evening (7 December) left four pedestrians injured, with a 41-year-old car driver arrested for suspected drink driving.

Two witnesses told Yahoo News Singapore that a Mercedes car driven at high speed rammed into four pedestrians along the road opposite Amara Hotel. Two of them appeared to be badly injured.

Wilddan Rosen, 53, a tech entrepreneur who is a Singapore permanent resident, said he was crossing the road near Tanjong Pagar Plaza with his 13-year-old daughter and wife when they were nearly knocked down by the car at about 6.30pm.

“I suddenly saw a car coming down at high speed and I pulled my daughter aside. He was coming way too fast and basically not noticing the pedestrians.

“We jumped out away from the car, he passed by. And then I was looking down the road and it was swerving. He was drunk like crazy,” he said.

“When he came down to the kerb, he lost control of the car and mowed down everyone that was on the kerb, and crossed over (and crashed) into the truck. The car was thrown back again on the other side and crashed into a taxi. You can smell the alcohol when you go closer.”

Rosen said one man was bleeding through his ear and looked badly injured while another man looked like he could not utter a word.

Another eyewitness said she was walking outside Amara Hotel when she heard a loud bang.

“I looked over and I saw the Mercedes bang into four people in a row. The first two people went flying. He mowed them down and there were sparks, then he crashed,” said Keerthika, 24, who works in the finance industry.

A third witness said he was meeting some clients when the accident happened.

“We came out to see four people lying on the ground: one woman and three men. There was an elderly man bleeding heavily,” said Mr Cheng, 53, who works in the marine industry.

Several staff of Amara Hotel were seen redirecting traffic at the junction of Tanjong Pagar Road and Gopeng Street.

The police said they were alerted to the accident at 6.29pm. A 41-year-old male car driver has been arrested for suspected drink driving and investigations into the matter are ongoing.

Separately, the Singapore Civil Defence Force said it dispatched four ambulances to the scene, and four casualties were conveyed to the Singapore General Hospital.