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A 56-year-old man was found dead at North Bridge Road Market and Food Centre in a case of unnatural death on Sunday (Mar.19).
His body was found slumped over one of the hawker centre's tables. According to Shin Min Daily News (SMDN), the body was there for an entire day.
The police told Mothership that they were alerted to a case of unnatural death at 861 North Bridge Road on Mar. 19 at 8:15pm.
One of the cleaners at the hawker centre, Liu Zhenguang (name transliterated from Chinese), 66, told SMDN that he first saw the man sitting with his head and upper body on the table at around 9am.
"I thought he was just a drunk customer, as I've seen plenty of them before, and so I paid him no attention and didn't disturb him," Liu told the Chinese paper.
However, the man failed to awaken from his slumber after the entire day.
At around 8pm in the evening, Liu was about to clean the floor when tried to wake the patron up.
He tried to wake the man up, jostling him and calling out for him to wake up for around three minutes.
When the man didn't respond, he immediately called for an ambulance.
Liu said that the hotline operator had instructed him to check to see if the man was breathing.
It was at that moment when Liu realised that the man wasn't breathing.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene by a Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) paramedic.
When a Shin Min reporter visited the hawker centre, other stall owners claimed that the man had been lying on the table at the hawker centre since 3am on Sunday morning.
An unnamed hawker said that he had seen a bowl of noodles in front of the unconscious man when he arrived to open his stall in the morning.
Liu felt a sense of guilt regarding the situation, as he felt that if he had noticed and approached the man earlier, the man might have survived.
According to eyewitnesses, the police came to retrieve the body at around 11pm, after conducting their investigations for about four hours.
Based on preliminary investigations, the police told Mothership that they do not suspect foul play.
Liu also told the paper that when he noticed the man in the morning, he was still carrying his red backpack. He recalled seeing the same backpacked placed on the seat next to the man in the evening.
An unnamed patron stated that he had heard the man snore, while another eyewitness told Shin Min that he had seen the man get up to stretch at around 6pm.
While the police were investigating, Liu noticed that the man's fingers were blue, and he observed spotting on the man's face.
Drunk or sleeping patrons a common sight
Stall vendors that were interviewed by Shin Min revealed that after the afternoon lunch crowd subsides, the hawker centre typically quietens down.
It is a common to see elderly people or drunk patrons taking hour-long naps and leaving after they wake up.
Liu explained that sometimes, patrons behave rowdily if they are woken up, thus most people at the hawker centre just ignore them.
This situation was completely unexpected, he mentioned.
Top photo via Shin Min Daily News, courtesy of readers.