Seamus Shi Liang, 26-years-old, was killed on 2 December 2020, when a part of a machine that he was repairing fell on his head.
State coroner Sharmila Sripathy delivered her findings on his death yesterday (16 June), ruling out foul play.
She said that the accident could have been prevented had Shi placed wooden blocked between two components of the machine before removing another of its parts.
His death was ruled a misadventure.
What happened?
Shi was a service engineer working for Arburg, a company that manufactures plastic injection moulding machines.
On the day of the incident, he went to Meiban Micro, another manufacturing firm, to repair a vertical plastic moulding machine, along with his colleague.
Part of his repair work involved removing a component of the machine which was secured by multiple bolts.
Shi placed his head between two other part of the machine as he unscrewed the bolts, and one of the parts dropped on him mere seconds after the bolts were removed.
His head was pinned down.
Shi’s colleague and workers from Meiban Micro tried to rescue him but it was to no avail.
He was pronounced dead at the scene after his body was extricated by SCDF officers.
They cited injuries to his head and neck as the cause of his death.
Coroner Sripathy noted that Shi and his colleague were not trained to repair the plastic moulding machines as the configuration of the one at Meiban Micro was different.
But they (Shi and a different co worker) had repaired another machine of the same model in March 2020.
Wooden blocks were placed between parts of the machine during the repairs on that occasion.
Singapore’s youngest bone marrow donor
Shi made the headlines more than 20 years ago for being Singapore’s youngest bone marrow donor as a 15-month-old infant.
he had donated his bone marrow to his elder sister who suffered from Leukaemia, back in 1995.
His father had hepatitis and his mother’s bone marrow was only a 50% match for his sister at the time.