Thursday September 23, 2010
Tears flow for orphaned girl
By DERRICK VINESH
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BUKIT MERTAJAM: It was a tearful send-off for teenage couple Teh Boh Yi and Khor Lee Mui, with the presence of their two-month-old baby Chloe at the funeral making people weep. Boh Yi, 19, a car accessories salesman and his wife Lee Mui, 17, a shop assistant, were killed in an accident on the Penang Bridge on Sunday.
Family members and friends, who occasionally cradled the infant, wept openly over the fate of the orphaned girl. Lee Mui’s mother H’ng Cheng Gim, 42, said both families would assume equal responsibility in raising the child. “Both our families will do our best to take care of our granddaughter’s welfare and education,” she said at the Berapit crematorium here yesterday.
Unbearable loss: A family member (right) consoling H’ng during the funeral in Bukit Mertajam yesterday.
The couple, who married eight months ago, was travelling in a multi-purpose vehicle with three friends when a lorry slammed into the car as it spun in the middle of the bridge after the driver lost control. One of their friends, Lee Chun Hao, 17, survived the tragedy despite being tossed out of the car.
He plunged 70m into the sea and was rescued by the marine police, while two other friends Chiam Chee Wei, 17, and Teh Bee Bee, 20, suffered serious injuries. Lee Mui’s father Khor Kim Hock, 43, a mechanic, said he last saw his daughter at 6pm on Sunday, adding that she had told her mother she was going out before the ill-fated trip with her friends.
Baby orphan: A family member holding Chloe during her parents’ funeral yesterday.
“I asked her to join me for dinner that night, but she told me that she had already eaten,” he said. Kim Hock, who has four daughters and a son, said Lee Mui, the fourth among her siblings, was a kind and caring person. Boh Yi’s father Teh Tee Hwa, 48, cried out aloud: “I have lost my only son.” “He had many friends and cared a lot for them,” he said, adding that Boh Yi had an elder sister. Chun Hao, who has since being discharged from the Penang Hospital, also paid his last respects.
