Boy, 15, dies at SAFRA Yishun rope course after instructor skips harness check

Fifteen-year-old Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) student Jethro Puah Xin Yang died after falling from a high-element rope course at the SAFRA Adventure Sports Centre in Yishun on 3 February 2021, during a school camp organised to promote team building. Jethro, the twelfth student to attempt the Canopy Sky Walk's 'Postal Carrier's Walk' — a horizontal steel cable suspended five storeys in the air — slipped from the foot cable and could not pull himself back up, leaving him dangling by a harness that volunteer instructor Muhammad Nurul Hakim Mohamed Din, 23, had never physically checked. Because Hakim had only visually inspected some participants' equipment rather than performing mandatory hands-on checks, Jethro's leg loops were loose, shifted from his upper legs to his waist, and eventually unbuckled entirely, leaving the teenager suspended by his shoulder straps at the armpits. Two facilitators from nearby towers attempted to hoist him back up and secured daisy chains under his armpits to prevent a full fall, but Jethro lost consciousness and was lowered to the ground, where SCDF paramedics performed CPR and used an AED before transporting him to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, where he died the following morning from multi-organ failure following traumatic asphyxia. On 15 January 2024, Hakim pleaded guilty to causing grievous hurt by a rash act endangering human life — a charge amended down from causing death by a rash act not amounting to culpable homicide — and was sentenced to six months' jail by the State Courts. Separately, outdoor adventure learning company Camelot and its officer Liew Foo Loong were charged in January 2024 under the Workplace Safety and Health Act for failing to ensure proper instructor training, adequate harness supervision, and proper equipment maintenance. The Ministry of Education suspended all height-based outdoor activities for two years following Jethro's death, resuming them in February 2023 at 50 per cent capacity with enhanced accreditation requirements. Jethro's parents, still grieving two years on, said in a statement: 'This review has come too late. Height-based activities carry the risk of serious injury, even death.'