By Viven Chan

WHEN she was hit by a car late last year, the driver avoided paying her medical bills in full.

So when she bumped into the driver near a shopping mall seven months later, she refused to let him escape a second time.

She confronted him, and he took off. That's when the chance meeting led to a dramatic chase on foot.

She chased him for about half an hour. Exhausted, both stopped to catch their breath - panting, resting but glaring at each other - until the police arrived.

It may seem like a scene out of a comedy but the 25-year-old Chinese national, who gave her name only as Ms Jing, found nothing amusing about it.

The pair first crossed paths on 25 Sep last year.

At about 5.50pm, Ms Jing, an assistant at a machinery company, was cycling from her workplace in Ang Mo Kio to her home in Bishan.

She was at a pedestrian crossing at the junction of Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 and Avenue 4 when a black car hit her bicycle from behind.

The impact threw her off her bicycle. She landed by the side of the road about a metre away. Her jeans were torn and her right thigh was bleeding.

Kept saying sorry

She told The New Paper in Mandarin: "I blacked out for a while until the driver got out of his car. He kept calling to me and saying 'sorry'. He told me not to cry.

"He said he did not see me and told me not to call the police."

The driver then drove her to a nearby clinic and waited with her for a while. But he later said he had to rush off.

Before he left, he gave Ms Jing his handphone number and $50 for her medical bill. But Ms Jing said her bill later came up to $73. This was verified by her lawyer.

She had suffered cuts and bruises on her right leg.

She recalled: "I didn't have money with me so I called my landlord, who arrived with $23."

She claimed that her new bicycle, which had cost her $80, was so badly wrecked that she could not use it anymore.

When Ms Jing got home, she called the driver.

"I told him the $50 was not enough," she said. "I also said the doctor had advised me to go to the hospital to check if my leg was fractured."

The man asked her how much she wanted. But she claimed it was "not just about money, but about responsibility".

The driver then told her he would take her to a hospital the next day. She waited at her house for two hours the next morning. He did not turn up.

His handphone was turned off when she called him.

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