ChanKelwin.com

Note: Names of mentioned individuals are changed to protect their identity.

My friend, Paula is in her mid-twenties. She is a victim of two snatch thieves. Both this events happened in a period of only 6 months.

The first time when Paula encountered a snatch thief, only her handbag was snatched away. She saw the person fled in a motorbike. Apart from losing her handbag and the things in it, she was not hurt.

We know too well how some snatch thief victims end up with cuts, bruises and even deaths. In a sense, she was lucky.

Unfortunately, her luck ran out last Friday morning. She encountered her second snatch thief incident. Whoever said lightning does not strike twice? In her case, it did. In fact, the second strike was much worse than the first.

We received a phone call from her boyfriend, Simon that afternoon. We were in shock when we received the news. Upon reaching the hospital, Simon told us what he knew.

Paula was walking towards the LRT station when it happened (just like the first time). Three passers-by found her lying by the roadside. She was unconscious and bleeding heavily at the back of her head. They sent her to the nearest hospital.

Thankfully, her mobile phone was still with her. Or else, they would not have been able to contact anyone since she was unconscious. They called the first number on the dialled numbers list and got Simon on the line.

Simon told us how shocked he was when the nurse showed him the clothes soaked in blood presumably used to apply pressure on Paula’s wound. The nurse shook her head (left to right). From the amount of blood and the nurse’s gesture, he prepared for the worst.

Source

In the end, it was not as bad as what he had imagined. Paula was very much alive, thankfully, albeit very pale and weak. The doctor did a CT scan and the results came out positive. She suffered no internal injuries to the head apart from the cut and a one or two inches scratch wound on the forehead. Her cut received four or five stitches.

You should have noticed by now that the title does not match with the story I have told this far. The truth is that my friend is very much alive now. Thank God for that. I hope neither of them are pantang and would get angry with me for saying otherwise.

I did so because I felt that it would give a stronger impact to the ones reading this than to use a title like “My Friend Could Have Died Last Friday Morning“. If anyone of you reading up to this point feels cheated or angry, I hope that I can make it up to you with this news below.

I was told that two other patients admitted earlier are snatch thief victims as well. One of them was discharged earlier that day. The second one was not as lucky. The patient was in a coma for a few days and passed away the day before.

We chatted for quite a while in the observation ward. We had more questions than answers because Paula could not remember what had happened. She only had vivid memories of being in the car and the next thing she knows, she is already in the hospital.

Then we started discussing how to prevent such incidents from happening again. The usual “advices” such as:

“Don’t use the same path”
“Don’t go out the same time”
“Bring an umbrella with you”
“Be aware of your surroundings”

I chipped in my two cents as well. However, it was after a day or two after thinking about the whole situation that I realized how “silly” we were.

When we talk about rape victims, it has to be their dressing, over-friendliness, foolishness, etc. When we talk about snatch victims, it has to be them not equipped with an umbrella, not fully aware of the surroundings, using the same path each day, etc.

Have you wondered why it is always the victims fault?

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Why can’t the people in power do something about it? Are crimes such as rape and snatch thief petty issues to those in power? The fact is that our streets are no longer safe.

It is only natural for crime rates to increase as the economy deteriorates. If it is true that our economy is still stable now, according to some minister, what would happen when the economy turns bad next year as some predicted? What are the people in power doing about it?

It is really unfortunate that the people in power seem to be more interested in dispersing peaceful gatherings without a permit, punching and throwing chairs in a meeting, calling each others names like dinosaur, big monkey and Bigfoot, emphasizing how little they spend on business trips, taking over the government and whatnot.

The truth is that I do not give two hoots about any of those mentioned anymore. They can buy a dozen toy remote controlled helicopters for RM2 billion each for all I care.

What I want is that my parents do not need to worry sick about my safety when I am walking down the street. On top of that, I do not want to be worried sick about my family and friends’ safety when they are walking down the street.

Just how difficult can that be?

I know. From how things are, it seems like an impossible task. I know.

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I did a quick search at Google and found some interesting articles. Definitely worth reading.

• Would you kill a snatch thief? >> Malaysiakini
• Give us back our right to feel safe >> Malaysiakini
• Snatch-theft death - Malaysian life cheaper than foreigner worker? >> DAPMalaysia.org

Videos capturing events of snatch thief occurrences in Malaysia.

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The reason for this (very long) write-up is that my friend would like to have as many people know about this incident. They even called the press and their story was published in China Press Sunday edition and another Malay newspaper. Of course, I don’t think their intention is to have 30 seconds of fame moment. Instead, I believe they too want to feel safe walking down any street without fear of a third strike.

My girlfriend immediately looked at me saying, “Why don’t you write this in your blog? Then more people will know about it.”

I replied, “Honey. I do have the (Internet) connection(s) but I am just dirt in cyberspace. No one will listen to me.”

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 5:56 am and is filed under Malaysia oh Malaysia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.