By Lediati Tan

IT WAS, reportedly, the worst crash of the day on the North-South Highway.

The car, with four men onboard, flipped as it crashed into a ravine and caught fire.

But it was also a miracle of sorts.

All four men in the vehicle escaped with nary a scratch. Two construction workers, who were by the side of the road, also very narrowly missed being run over by the car.

The driver, Singaporean Brian Yeoh, told The New Paper about what he described as a 'life-changing experience'.

Mr Yeoh, 33, a business analyst, said the accident took place on Saturday afternoon while he and the others were driving from Malacca to Kuala Lumpur for lunch.

Mr Yeoh was travelling with three friends, including another Singaporean and two Indonesians.

The group of four left Malacca at 1.45pm and had been driving for about an hour when it started to rain near Seremban.

Mr Yeoh, who was travelling on the innermost lane, slowed down because of the rain, but a white sedan car overtook him and slowed down in front of his car.

Stepped on brakes

Mr Yeoh, who said that he was driving at about 100km per hour at the time, stepped on the brakes.

This sudden move to avoid hitting the other vehicle made his car spin and crash into the railings on the left side of the road, before going down a ravine.

The vehicle flipped after hitting the railings and hit the ground upside down. The momentum caused the car to flip a second time and the car landed right side up.

It continued to move and rolled over a fallen tree before coming to a halt.

Then, the bonnet of the car started to smoulder, and the four quickly scrambled out.

But surprisingly, all of them survived the horrific crash relatively unscathed.

Mr Yeoh suffered a whiplash injury to his neck, another friend had a slight bump on his head and one was completely unhurt.

One of the passengers in the back seat did not even have his seatbelt on, but he was able to brace himself against the front passenger seat, suffering only a minor cut to his left foot.

As his car plunged into the ravine, Mr Yeoh had two thoughts.

'I've seen this before in a Youtube video, and we're all going to die,' he thought.

'I saw the roof cave in about 15cm in front of my head. When the car came to a stop, we were quite stunned that we were all still alive. The guys in the back started shouting, 'Are you ok? Are you ok?'.'

They also narrowly missed hitting two construction workers who were doing maintenance work about 5m from where they crashed into the railings.

Said Mr Yeoh: 'We drove about 30m off the road, 5m down and didn't hit anything on the way, not even a tree, a lamp post or a signboard.'

Coincidentally, Mr Yeoh had bought a S$40 fire extinguisher to put in his car about two weeks ago, as he was worried that car would overheat while he was driving.

The fire extinguisher came in handy and he was able to put out the fire within 10 to 15 minutes of the crash.

He was told by the police officers who arrived at the scene that it was 'the worst crash' of the 25 they had seen that day.

Mr Yeoh said that he has been driving up to Kuala Lumpur about once a month for the last one-and-a-half years and has never had an accident on the North-South Highway.

The car he was driving is only two years' old and it was last serviced a month ago.

Mr Yeoh, a car buff, said that he takes very good care of his Subaru car and had checked things like tyre pressure and the radiator that very morning before they left Singapore.

He estimates that repairs to the car will cost him between S$50,000 and S$60,000. He added that the money lost is nothing compared to the lives that could have been lost.

He said: 'It feels good to be alive. Everything else is a small problem.

'It's one of those moments when you think: Now, I'm living on extra time.'

What could account for his narrow escape?

He said: 'It boils down to two things - we weren't going very fast, and the sturdy car saved our lives.'

When contacted, Sergeant Beasir of the traffic police department at Seremban confirmed that a police report of the accident was made.

Day of crashes

A TOTAL of 31 deaths were recorded in road accidents yesterday in Malaysia, reported Malaysian Insider.

The three categories which registered the most fatalities were motorcycle users, followed by car users and pedestrians.

The number of accidents yesterday totalled 1,013, and summons were issued to 4,766 offenders, police said.

Municipal roads registered the highest number of accidents with 340 cases, followed by federal roads with 277, state roads with 225, other roads with 118 and highways with 71, reported Bernama.

The Malaysian authorities are again conducting an exercise, OpsSikap, which started on 13Sep and will go on until 27Sep, to reduce accidents during the Hari Raya festive season.

In addition, the Kuala Lumpur Fire and Rescue Services Department will during the festive season patrol highways and main roads identified as accident-prone areas to provide speedy assistance.

This article was first published in The New Paper.