HAADYAI: Ooi Fook Chuan, 33, was lying in his bed in the ICU of the Rajyindee Hospital here. He could not speak as he was on drips and hooked to a ventilator.

But the terror he had witnessed a day earlier was in his eyes and he wrote out his terrifying experience for The Star.

He said he was taking out his luggage from his car at Level B2 of the Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel when a car bomb went off, flinging him back.
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His wife Wong Sze Ee, 28, was not as badly affected. She was breathing from an oxygen tank when met in the normal ward.

She said there was a blackout in the car park after the explosions and the place was filled with smoke.

“I was terrified. I thought this was the end for me. My husband and I hid underneath a staircase. There was an air vent there which supplied us with fresh air from outside.

“After shouting for help for about an hour, we heard footsteps from the car park a floor above. We then climbed up the staircase holding a broken metal railing and screamed louder.

“Someone spotted us and threw several bottles of mineral water to us, and we were then rescued,” said Wong, adding that they might have died from suffocation if they had not been rescued.

There is said to be another Malaysian woman in the isolation ward at the same hospital whose identity has yet to be determined at press time.

Choo Kok Boon, 46, from Kuala Lumpur, was walking past the outlet with his Thai wife when they were hit by flying glass shards from the glass panels on the outlet which broke. He was warded at the normal ward of the Rajyindee Hospital here for injuries to his head, arms and legs.

A couple from Kuala Kedah suffered severe burns.

Lew Kim Lai, 39, and his wife Lim Hock Bee, 37, were unable to talk when met at the Songkhlanagarind Hospital.

Lew, who had 70% burns all over his body, was in the ICU and on drips while Lim, whose face was badly burnt, was in the normal ward.

Two other women from Malacca, K. Sangathala, 33, and Mini Ng, 35, were discharged from the hospital yesterday.

Sangathala said she ran out of her room on the 16th floor upon hearing the explosions. The hotel management then told guests to go to the pool area on the 12th floor, she said.

“There were about 200 to 300 people gathered by the pool. We waited for two to three hours before we were rescued,” said the accounts clerk who was treated for inhaling too much smoke.

At least 27 Malaysians were among the 416 people injured.

– THE STAR