By Ng Tze Yong

BY the time Mr Winston Goh left KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) at noon on Sunday, he was drained.

It had been a long, long night.

A late-night phone call had ended with a mad rush to the hospital and hours of anxious waiting.

But, finally, he could go home to rest.

His daughter, in a hospital bed, was in stable condition. His wife had come to relieve him at the girl's bedside.

Go home and freshen up, his wife had coaxed him.

But the businessman just could not do it. The questions continued to vex him.

The image of his daughter arriving at KKH in the wee hours of the night, almost unrecognisable with her injuries and bandages, the swirling siren lights, the rush of doctors...

The initial anxiety and anger had given way to relief somewhat, but now, something else filled its place.

He had to do something. Anything. Just not go home and sleep.

A quick shower at his Bishan home was all he allowed himself.

Before long, he was in his car again, a camera on the front seat beside him, eyes steady with resolve, fixed on the road signs to Upper Thomson Road, taking him to Sembawang.

At Camp Challenge Sembawang, he got some answers from the camp organisers. But he just wasn't satisfied.

He asked the children to take him to the exact spot, a road bend beside a field, and show him exactly what happened.

The children pointed to spots here, there and there.

Blood stains

Mr Goh, 46, nodded, took notes mentally, and tried to piece together the puzzle in his head.

He followed the tyre marks on the tarmac and scrutinised the blood stains.

He found a depression on the ground.

Had it already been there? Or was it from one of the girls after the impact?

Someone showed him the pile of garbage bags on which his daughter had miraculously landed after being hit.

He scrutinised that too - and gave silent thanks for the unseen hand of an angel.

He turned to estimate the distance to the point of collision - 6.5m. His girl flew that far.

At the garage which housed the all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), there was no one around.

This dad went to work.

He knew what ATVs looked like. But seeing them upclose gave him a shudder.

'These are not cars. They don't have a bumper. So if you get hit, it's solid steel,' he said.

He took out his camera and snapped away.

Then he went to the back, opened up their fuel caps, leaned in and sniffed.

Yes, the fuel tanks were full, just as he suspected.

Later, Mr Goh would go online to Google Earth, punch in the words 'Saint Helena Road' and download the map.

Then, he would upload his photos of the accident site and apply the stitch function, combining them into a panorama.

And he would look again at the photos his wife had taken of the white polo T-shirt their daughter was wearing when she was hit, and see the tyre marks that ran across the left shoulder.

The doctors had snipped it off, but she knew that the shirt had a sentimental value for her daughter.

After Mr Goh left the camp on Sunday afternoon, it was back to the hospital to take his two other daughters home, cook them instant noodles for dinner, and then return to the hospital to relieve his wife.

He said: 'I could have left it all to the police, but I did not want to leave it to a third party to tell me what happened to my own daughter.

'How much would they tell me? When would they tell me? I had to see things for myself.

'I was not out to do the police work. I just did what I had to do as a father.'

That Sunday night, he finally got sleep, six hours on a small foldable bed, in his daughter's ward.

And the day after, on Monday morning, it was off to work.

This article was first published in The New Paper on 26 Nov 2008.