Gain City Aircon Repairman Survives 10m Fall During Private Job; Wife Visits Him From China

No matter what the job, safety should always come first. Even if you’re an experienced pro, accidents can and will happen out of your control.

This is doubly so if you’re working several floors up and the consequence of any accident is a potentially fatal plunge to ground level.

Gain City Employee Suffers Fall During Private Aircon Repair

On 27 July, at around 6 pm, an employee at appliance company Gain City took a private job to repair an air-conditioning unit.

This unit was located on the third floor of Block 30 on Kaki Bukit Road 3, according to Shin Min Daily News.

The 37-year-old Gain City employee did not wear any safety equipment.

The staff on the third floor then heard the man yelling. When they looked, they saw him lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

A video taken of the scene showed the man with blood from his head and body and a suspected fracture in his leg.

Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) personnel worked to get the man on a stretcher as he groaned in pain from his injuries. They rushed him to the hospital alive but seriously wounded.

It was found that the air-con units were placed above a wire mesh frame. One section of the mesh had given way, likely causing the employee to fall through it.

He is believed to have fallen to a similar frame on the second floor, where one of his shoes remained.

Afterwards, he plunged from the second floor down to ground level. The initial fall to the second storey may have even saved him, preventing a direct ten-metre plummet onto the hard ground.

Company Allegedly Unaware of Repairman’s Private Job

The director of Gain City’s Human Resouces (HR) Department stated that the injured is a 37-year-old from China, currently working as a driver for them.

Shin Min reported that the employee had worked for four years as an aircon repairman before being transferred to a driver role due to an arm injury.

The HR Director claimed that the company was unaware of the employee taking a private job to repair air-conditioning. They also mentioned that his work permit did not allow him to take up work outside of Gain City.

After the accident, they arranged for the victim’s wife to fly to Singapore on 30 July to help take care of him in Changi General Hospital.

Though still hospitalised, his condition is improving.

Gain City emphasised their focus on safety in their statement, adding that the employee violated their safety protocols by not using the PPE he had taken when leaving work while performing the repairs, resulting in the fall.

Falls have previously claimed the lives of workers, be they in construction or appliance repairs.

The aircon repairman in this incident was lucky to have survived and gotten to see his wife again.

An even luckier worker survived a seven-storey plummet in Sembawang in 2022.