Injured Phnom Penh crush survivor regains conciousness after 60 hours

Sinara Rim was perhaps the first man to fall in the tragic bridge crush in Phnom Penh. He regained consciousness in hospital 60 hours later. With extensive injuries he remains hospitalised and is partially paralyzed. Phnom Penh, Cambodia. 26/11/2010.

Sinara Rim was perhaps the first man to fall in the tragic bridge crush in Phnom Penh. He regained consciousness in hospital 60 hours later. With extensive injuries he remains hospitalised and is partially paralyzed.

26th of November 2010

Demotix

Sinara Rim, 27-years-old, was walking across the diamond bridge around 9.30pm on the last evening of Cambodia’s water festival. A group of men were walking in the opposite direction.

“We were in the centre of the bridge when a man coming towards me pushed me and I fell down. I cannot get up,” he tells me as he sits on his hospital bed this afternoon.

“I woke up in [Calmette] hospital on Thursday at 7am,” he continues. “I feel very lucky to be alive.”

“I hurt all over and cannot move my right arm. I cannot move my right leg very much.” Before I am asked to leave the hospital he tells me that: “I have been given 4 million Riel for help [$1000], food and hospital are no charge.”

Sinara was unconscious for around 60 hours and survived the crush and stampede on the diamond bridge which killed 347 people. His friend Sopheap Sam, 28, who did not wish to be photographed tells me that she is: “so very happy he alive [sic]”.

Reliable local sources inform me that: “initial footage on Cambodia’s ‘Beyon TV’,” owned by a close relative of Cambodia’s PM, at 11.20pm showed “grainy and poor quality images of men apparently fighting in the centre of the bridge before the stampede was triggered”. This footage, probably from a mobile phone, was not used in later broadcasts. The owner of this TV company is also heavily involved with the development of, and property ownership on Diamond Island.

Sinara Rim has no memory of the ensuing stampede or of anyone falling before he fell and it’s certain that he was one of the first to be caught up in the horrific and tragic crush. Perhaps the bodies which fell around him saved his life. We will never know. My translator who wishes to remain anonymous comments as we leave: “this guy may never get better or be able to use his right arm again. What will he do for work? What are his prospects now?”

Meanwhile today, many more flower tributes piled up at the entrance to the bridge to commemorate the hundreds of dead and injured.