SINGAPORE, May 17 — If not for Tan Kian Choon’s quick thinking to fetch a lifebuoy, a third drowning boy might not have been saved at East Coast Park on May 8.

Housewife Silvia Hajas, 47, who had swum out after spotting four boys struggling at sea, approached Tan’s wife, Yvonne Gan, 48, for help after she pulled out the second boy.

“I was too tired, I couldn’t go back in (the sea) by myself,” Hajas recalled.

“So I asked her, ‘Can you swim? Can you please help me?’”

Gan did not know how to swim, so she shouted for her husband, who immediately ran about 10m to untie a lifebuoy nearby, and rushed into the sea with Hajas.

Yesterday, Tan, 53, and Hajas were presented with the Community Lifesaver Award by the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), in recognition of members of the public whose actions helped to save lives when there is an element of self-risk.

Hajas, an Australian who has lived in Singapore for six years on a dependant’s pass, was with her eight-year-old daughter at the park that day when she spotted the boys struggling at sea.

They were part of a group of six students from Jurongville Secondary School who went swimming after completing their examination paper.

Two boys were back at shore at the time and four had trouble in the waters.

Muhammad Suhaimi Sabastian, 12, later drowned.

Describing their combined efforts to save the third boy, Hajas said that the floating device Tan took along “relaxed” her, because she could use less energy and “just kick”.

“We were working together and moving at the same pace, both of us holding on the floating device, and we got to the boy.”

Hajas then told the boy to float on his back.

“When you lie on your back, you’re less likely to use so much energy. You have an ability to just calm yourself down,” she added.

They flipped him over and put him on top of the buoy.

“There were ropes around the buoy, we were holding on to that, and just kicking and using breaststroke to get all three of us out,” she said.

Tan said that what he did was “not such a big deal”.

“I think it’s quite normal. If you can do something, just do it.”

That was probably why he ignored his wife when she asked him repeatedly, “Can you do it?” before he rushed out to sea.

Gan knew he could swim, but began to worry when he was getting the buoy because the current was very strong.

Gan said that she could not bring herself to feel happy because they did not manage to save Suhaimi.

“The situation then was really very tough,” she said, sniffing back tears.

“The fourth boy was there bobbing up and down, struggling. When he sank for the third time, I didn’t see him resurface again.”

Colonel Abdul Razak, 49, director of the public affairs department of SCDF, urged members of the public to learn from Hajas and Tan’s “humanity and civic-mindedness”.

“In an emergency situation, as much as SCDF will try our utmost to be there almost instantaneously, you and I know it’s almost impossible for that to happen,” he said.

“Nothing beats the person who is there, in the immediate vicinity, to help those in trouble… because in a life-threatening situation like that, every minute counts.” — TODAY