UNCLE UMAR WANTS TO MEET DESMOND KWEK BO YANG, THE BOY HE SAVED 19 YEARS AGO

By Maizatul Jamny Muhammad Rosli

KUALA LUMPUR, 15 Jun (Bernama) --  It has been almost 20 years, but, Umar Kamarudin, 67, still remember clearly how he saved a child from drowning in a swimming pool and now wonders how the boy is now and is hoping to meet him.

Umar, who retired from the Royal Malaysia Police as Superintendent in Bukit Aman, said he had made several attempts, including using social media,  to locate the child.

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"I hope to be able to meet him and see how he has progressed. How he is now that he is an adult,” he told Bernama recently.

According to the retired policeman, now a project director at a local construction company, the last time he heard about the child was when he received a thank you card from Desmond Kwek Bo Yang a few months after the incident. 

“The card reads ‘Dear Uncle Umar bin Kamarudin, Thank you very much! From Desmond Kwek Bo Yang. I was very happy to receive the card and have kept it (the card),  which is the only memory I have of him.

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“I don’t how they got my house address and I didn't know how to contact them at that time," he said.

Recalling the 19-year-old moment, Umar said it was on May 8, 2005,  when he was with his wife and their two children at the swimming pool of KL Plaza Suites, now known as Fahrenheit Suites, to spend their weekend.

The then Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) was sitting about one metre away from the children's pool watching his two children playing when he saw a boy, who was about six or seven years old, in the adult pool frantically trying to keep afloat.

“I looked away for just a few minutes and when I turned back, I saw the boy no longer there and then ran to the spot where I had seen him and saw him at the bottom of the pool. I shouted at the crowd to get the child.

"He was already limp with a pale yellowish face... my thought then was to save him and I did the CPR which I learned in the police force," he said, adding that there were no 'lifeguards' at the swimming pool at the time of the incident.

According to the father of four children, the noisy atmosphere at the swimming pool turned quiet with everybody in shock.

He said the CPR helped and the boy became conscious and vomited water.

 "Not long after, the emergency team arrived and took the child in an ambulance to the hospital for further treatment. That was the last time I saw the child.

"It was an experience I cannot forget. If given the chance, I want to see him and ask how he is. To say hello to him and his family," he said.

-- BERNAMA