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JAKARTA – The waves were coming tall and fast, and aftershocks continued to shake bits of concrete from the half-collapsed hotel.
But Singaporean paraglider Ng Kok Choong, 53, sat for hours in pitch darkness, risking his life to comfort a woman lying trapped under rubble.
His courage left a deep impression on Belgian Francois de Neuville, who together with Mr Ng orchestrated the rescue of a mother-daughter pair from a ruined hotel in the aftermath of last month’s earthquake in Central Sulawesi.
“KC was a great man and inspired me,” the 29-year-old told The Straits Times on Wednesday (Oct 24), referring to Mr Ng by his nickname. “I was about to join him in India to fly together, and I was really looking forward to it because we shared this bond after surviving the disaster.”
But even before a month had passed since the Sept 28 quake in Palu, Mr de Neuville received news of his friend’s death. Mr Ng’s body was discovered on Tuesday in the Dhauladhar mountain range in India, where he was paragliding.
In fact, he and Mr de Neuville were set for a reunion there later this week.
“He was a good paragliding pilot, not taking unmeasured risks, always trying to keep paragliding safe and fun by taking the good decisions,” recalled Mr de Neuville in an e-mail.
The three-men paragliding team they were part of in Palu called themselves The Happy Flyers, he said, adding: “I remember him saying: ‘It doesn’t matter if we win or lose. The most important is to have fun and have a happy landing.”
The events of Sept 28 were a close shave for the two men, who met in the provincial capital of Palu for a paragliding competition and became teammates, roommates and fast friends before the 7.4-magnitude quake and tsunami it triggered threw the event into disarray.
They had just walked out of the gates of Mercure Hotel, when the earth shook, sending parts of the hotel crumbling in a cloud of brown dust, trapping some guests.
The two men managed to rescue a young girl and her mother from the rubble, and were evacuated out of Palu the day after the quake.
Mr de Neuville described Mr Ng as kind and friendly, recounting how the Singaporean had asked him to share a room in Palu when he learnt that the Belgian was looking for a roommate.
With both of them having served in military combat units – Mr Ng was a commando – they had much in common, said Mr de Neuville.
“I have been really impressed by his courage and bravery during the disaster in Palu. With no hesitation he risked his life to save an injured woman. Climbing on the debris of the collapsing hotel to try to rescue her,” he said.
The two men had found a young girl and her mother in the rubble of Mercure Hotel. They managed to free the girl, who was taken to higher ground by Mr de Neuville when giant waves started sweeping their way up the shore.
But Mr Ng stayed put in the ruined hotel.
“When I left with the child to try to take her to safety, he was trying to lift up the beton blocks that were keeping the woman a prisoner of the building,” said Mr de Neuville.
The concrete was too heavy so Mr Ng sat with the woman, holding her hand and offering the few words of comfort he knew in Malay.
It was only hours later, with the help of a few more men who had entered the hotel, that he managed to free the woman, who was rushed to hospital.
“Despite the obvious danger of staying there, KC didn’t run away. Thanks to him, this woman is alive today and reunited with her family,” said Mr de Neuville. “She told me: ‘God bless him, he is an angel’.”
He added: “It breaks my heart to know that he is gone. I will deeply miss him.”
Mr Ng is the second teammate Mr de Neuville has lost in less than a month.
The third member of The Happy Flyers, Indonesian paraglider Gleen Mononutu, was killed in the Palu quake.
“This is horrible,” said Mr de Neuville, who sent The Straits Times a picture of the three men during their first days in Palu.
“I can’t believe that I’m the only one still alive in this picture.”
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