KOTA KINABALU: The death of a restaurant waitress in Luyang here after she was hit by a food elevator was a devastating blow to her family.
Lau See Yen, 20, succumbed to serious injuries eight hours after the incident about 9.10pm while receiving treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).
The victim was delivering meals from the ground floor to the first floor of the restaurant when the food elevator malfunctioned and hit her about 1.15pm. Due to the impact, she suffered severe injuries on her head, hand and neck and was bleeding all over.
A doctor from the QEH, who happened to be at the scene, rendered medical assistance to the victim before she was sent to the hospital by a Civil Defence Department’s ambulance.
See Yen was the second eldest among four siblings. Her mother passed away when she was just 11 years old. Together with her sisters Lau See Hui, 22, Lau See Jia, 18, and brother Lau Ren Jie, 16, they had to learn to look after themselves at a very young age.
See Hui said her sister had always been very understanding and supportive of the family. She started working after completing her secondary school education to ease the burden of their father as her eldest sister was pursuing her studies. See Hui is currently pursuing her final year in Chinese in University Malaya.
She learned about the news of her sister’s passing when she touched down in Kota Kinabalu yesterday morning.
“Although See Yen did not like to study and never received tertiary education, she took care of the family well. She contributed most of her salary for the household expenses. I always admired her.
“As the eldest in the family, the responsibility of taking care of the household should be mine, but because I was pursuing my studies, See Yen took over. We never worried about her.”
See Hui added that See Yen always fetched her younger sister, See Jia, home from work at a newspaper company no matter how tired she was.
Although she had to get up early to work the next day, she never complained due to her love for her family.
The eldest sister added that See Yen had been driving their father’s vehicle to work. She had been working hard to save money, hoping that she could buy her own car. Meanwhile, city police chief Assistant Commissioner Ahmad Sofi Zakaria when contacted yesterday, said that police had classified the case as sudden death.
“There was no criminal motive involved in this case,” he added.