SINGAPORE: Officers who attended to an incident where a 31-year-old woman jumped from a HDB block at Eunos Crescent had acted appropriately and according to procedures, the Singapore Police Force SPF and Singapore Civil Defence Force SCDF said on Friday Sep 23 that they were aware of online comments on whether they could have done more to prevent the incident which took place on Tuesday.
The police responded to a call for assistance at 36 Eunos Crescent at 6.30 pm on that day.
The first two police officers arrived at the scene at 6.43 pm and proceeded immediately to the unit, but the unit was locked, SPF and SCDF said in the news release.
A second pair of police officers arrived at 6.44 pm and went to the ground floor.
They saw a woman standing on the ledge of the unit, said the authorities, adding that other police officers arrived shortly after.
The officers at the ground floor engaged the woman to try to dissuade her from jumping off the ledge, using both English and her mother tongue.
The woman was not receptive to the attempts of the police officers to calm her down, nor to retreat from the ledge into the unit. The SCDF was alerted to the incident at 6.43 pm, and a Red Rhino vehicle arrived at the scene within eight minutes, followed shortly by a fire engine and an ambulance.
The woman jumped off the ledge at 6.54 pm, within minutes of SCDF's arrival, just as the crew was in the midst of bringing rescue equipment up to the unit and as the safety life air pack was en route to the location, SPF and SCDF said.
The woman was conscious of her condition at the hospital. She was subsequently apprehended under the Mental Health Care and Treatment Act 2008, the police said in a response issued to media on Wednesday.
The police are aware of the videos circulating online about the incident and would like to urge members of the public to refrain from circulating the videos and speculating on the case, they added.
On Friday, SPF and SCDF also acknowledged the efforts of two members of the public who had seen the woman on the ledge and tried to engage her before the police arrived.