Safety officer kept brave front in face of Jurong fire
Mr Nelson Poh, second from the left, with his family. Photo: Nelson Poh
SINGAPORE — His team had only ever put out one small fire before — in less than five minutes. So when a laboratory burst into flames at his workplace on Monday (Oct 12) morning — killing an employee — Mr Nelson Poh Beng Ann and his team of in-house emergency responders were faced with a challenge of a very different scale.
Even though they had done safety drills before as members of Leeden National Oxygen’s Company Emergency Response Team (CERT), an actual fire was “completely different”, said Mr Poh, 58, a safety officer at the company, which is located in Jurong.
He could sense the fear and uncertainty of the CERT members as they ventured closer to the raging fire, some of them shivering “with every boom” of the fire, but he kept a “brave front” in order to lead them on. “Luckily they are tough enough (and stayed),” Mr Poh said in an interview yesterday.
Mr Poh was one of 10 CERT members who responded to the fire before the Singapore Civil Defence Force arrived. Such teams are required for premises that store more than five metric tonnes of petroleum and flammable materials, to respond to fire and hazardous materials emergencies.
Seven were injured in the fire, including Mr Poh and three other CERT rescuers. Mr Poh was hospitalised at National University Hospital for smoke inhalation and discharged yesterday morning.
Mr Poh served 30 years in the Republic of Singapore Navy as a communications specialist before working at Leeden. All navy officers are trained to fight ship fires and fire drills are conducted daily on ships, he explained.
He had just returned from doing his safety check rounds on Monday and was checking his emails when he heard explosions. Cycling over to the explosion site, he saw that some CERT responders had already arrived to help staff from the laboratory out.
“I knew that no one contained the fire, (so) my job (was) to contain the fire,” he said, adding that the fire was spreading. “While trying to contain the fire, we heard a few explosions ... there were a lot of gas cylinders around so I continued to fight to contain the fire ... I don’t know how long we were (doing it for).”
He also had to contain his own fears, to keep up team morale. “I’m very fortunate. Luckily, they trust me. Imagine you are so near the fire — if I tell you I (wasn’t) scared, I’m lying. My heart (was jumping). (But) if I didn’t contain the fire, the situation will be worse,” he said.
The company’s staff, including the chief executive, treats each other like “family”. “This home must be saved,” he said. “I’m afraid but (it is) my responsibility ... I told myself (to) focus ... I have to show a brave front. Lucky they are brave enough to follow me.”
As CERT rescuers, the team does its own training — at least twice a year — to ensure members can handle tasks like setting up fire hoses, and is audited by the SCDF.
His wife, he added, “jumped like a monkey” when she heard that he was being brought to the hospital. Asked about the victim — chemist Lim Siaw Chian, 30, the mother of a six-month old daughter — Mr Poh said he had not known her personally. “I feel sad ... it’s sad that life is lost,” he said, adding as a safety officer, his concern is to prevent fires from happening.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Manpower has issued a stop-work order on production and bottling of hydrocarbons as well as the buying and selling of bottled gases stored at the adjacent area near the laboratory. But employees working in adjacent buildings which were unaffected have returned to work.
Investigations into the incident are ongoing. It is understood that Ms Lim’s funeral will be held in Malaysia.
