Unfortunate event: Charging e-scooter / bike batteries at home

Hi Guys, its been a while again since i blogged about my life after my wedding. Now that i am a married woman, there are stuffs in life i need to keep up with; my personal well being, grooming, work, family, friends, my hubby and of course my home. Family gathering has became my priority in life now.

Last 2 months back, we were badly hit by the news that my father-in-law passed away. Just a span of 3 years, i lost 3 of my love ones: my mother who passed away in 2016 who had a fierce battle with cancer, my grandmother in 2017 whom i couldn't even attend her funeral because of my wedding in the same year, my father-in-law who did his best to fight off infections during his stay in SGH.

My father-in-law was a healthy 70+ old man who doesn't have any problems with his mobility and health issues. Unfortunately, he landed in hospital due to an unforeseen accident.

It all happened back during 16 Feb 2019.

It was a Friday night and my love and I were going to bed at around past midnight 1 am when my hubby suddenly received a call from his elder brother (Qiang). Through their conversation, i heard words like explosions, injured and hospital. I felt uncomfortable hearing those words and decided to go down to my mother-in-law house with my hubby to have a look. When we reached the house, the fire was already put out, the floor and half the living room was covered in soot. It was not totally black but the burnt smell was terrible. Some things were badly burnt and melted , like those cables and some other batteries. The floor was wet as they put out the fire with water.

Just a little background : my father-in-law was a rag-and-bone man and those are the items which could fetch some money by selling them away.

Hubby's younger brother (Hao) and him helped to discard things that were brunt while my MIL and i helped clear the puddles of black water in the living room. We were lucky that whole house wasn't damaged.

At the point of time when we reached his house, Qiang had already drove my FIL to the A&E Changi. However, after that, we were informed that CGH doesn't have the facilities to treat burns and was then transferred to SGH. It was almost 5 am when we were almost done clearing the burnt items. Qiang went home after that and love and i went over to SGH to register FIL for the admission. We waited patiently at A&E and waiting the doctors to update us on the condition.

After about 30 min, one of the doctors came out from the operating theater and told us that my FIL was quite badly burnt. He had 70% 3rd degree burnt. There were burns on his both legs, left arm, chest, back and partial burnt on his face. The burns on his legs and arms were severe. Doc also told us that the operation may take up to 3 hours and he may or may not pull through because of his age, percentage of burns, etc. We were devastated by the news but there isn't anything we could do at that moment since he was still in the OT. Hubby told me to go home to get some rest while he informed his family and waiting for the the OT to finish.

I went home after that and got a short rest as i was really tired from the clearing of the debris in the wee hours. At 8am, i was up and drove back to the hospital again. FIL was not discharged from OT until 9am (if i remember correctly). He was admitted to the ICU and his entire body was covered in plaster except his right arm. Our hearts fell when we saw him like that. We were supposed to be celebrating the last day of the CNY and today, we were here at the hospital, putting our hopes on my FIL that he would overcome his fight.

He came round only the 2nd night as he was heavily sedated during the operation. He was under morphine, fentanyl and some other drugs. He couldn't speak at all for 1 week as there was a tube inserted through his mouth to aid him breathing as the over inhale in smoke had caused his air passage to swollen. His hands were tied to the side of the bed to prevent him from pulling out the tubes.

He was in agony and things were worst when he couldn't speak or express himself.

After a few days in ICU, he made good progress and was able to point out alphabets or even write. However, we couldn't make out what he was writing or point as it doesn't form a good word.

The following week was better as the tube in his mouth was removed and he could slowly speak to us. All of us were dying to ask him this question: What happened?

In summary, he explained that it was midnight and the battery was fully charged. My MIL and Hao were in their room as it was late, leaving him in the living room as he wanted to make sure the battery was okay to use. After the battery was fully charged, he took out the battery from the wall socket and leave it aside for almost half an hour. There was more to it but we could not understand what he was trying to do. And after that, it exploded.

According to MIL, she said that she heard a loud explosion and when she came out to see; the living room was already on fire and filled with black smoke. She saw my FIL was already trying to put out the fire and she went to the toilet to fetch more water. Hao said that he was gaming when he heard few loud explosions (like the sound of fireworks,) he rushed out immediately and open all windows before putting out the fire. After that, he called Qiang to ask him fetch FIL to hospital.

It was one of his stay in hospital when he was conscious enough to describe what happened on that day. During his 5 weeks stay in SGH, there were good and bad times when his health would improve and suddenly dip to the lowest. Otherwise, most of the time he would speak things that were non-existent or doesn't make sense to any of us. The nurses told us that it was normal because he was on morphine or would say that his mind is confused because he has been staying in ICU too long.

We were very worried.

On and off there were days when the doctors would call up a family meting to discuss his conditions and what to do if FIL health conditions were to improve/ deteriorate. In their statement, they said that FIL was close to 0% survival because the burns percentage, his age, his current health condition would add up to a probability of negative 100% survival rate. But if he were to survive, he might need 6 months to recover and the medical bill would cost very high. The cost of staying in ICU is definitely higher than other wards and for burns patients, it is inevitable to stay in ICU due to dangers of infection as the protective skin layer was already gone. Doctors also mentioned that a 100% recovery would mean that his body has to be covered with skin. So imagine you have 70% burnt skin and left with 30% good skin, how do you achieve 100% good skin? The solution was that either you use it from the skin bank or, you have to scrap part of the 30% good skin to cover the burn area, wait for the good skin to recover again and scrap and put on the damaged skin. It was a painful process.

All of us were lost for words.

One, we had to consider the fact that the medical bills are rocketing sky high and the other, praying that FIL could recover and go through rounds and round of operations for skin grafting.

It was a difficult period.

During the 4th week of his stay, he was going through kidney dialysis as there were too much toxin in his blood due to medications. He was still hanging on the life line as his conditions were not stable. We would visit him whenever we can after work and talk to him for every opportunity that was given. On the days when he couldn't speak, he will listen to our voice and nod/shake his head.

On 21 March, i heard news from my hubby that my FIL conditions was going downhill very quickly. I visited him on 21 March and could see that he was very weak and couldn't speak much. On 21 March, he wasn't able to speak at all. On 22 March, my love text me at 12 pm and informed me that FIL had fever up to 40 Degree since the night before. At 4pm, received another text from him that the infection worsen and his multiple organs are failing, docs has given the strongest antibiotic but still unable to fight off the infection. He may or may not pull through the weekend.

At 5 plus, doc informed us that he may not even pull through today.

We were already making our way to the hospital and the doc called my hubby up to say FIL is showing signs of 'actively dying'. When we reached there, we called him a number of times but there was no response at all. In a while more, both my brother in laws arrived.

He had already passed on.

His funeral was held on the following day at my MIL void deck and his funeral processions happened 3 days after.

At the hospital

If you hadn't know, there were actually a lot of burns cases in hospital. Most of it were simple innocent cases of charging E-scooter/ E-bike batteries at home while the explosion happened. One of them was reported only on the news as well as the brothers were charging the battery in their room when the accident occurred. The nurses also told us that there were increasing cases ever since there were E-scooter/ E-bike on the roads.

There were also cases on mobile devices explosions, burns from electrical appliances, scaling from cooking etc.

And here is a photo of my happy FIL when i married into the LIM family last year.