'Even if I get injured, it's OK': Zhonghua Secondary students on how they banded together to move fallen tree from road

It was right after school when Etzel saw the tree fall.

He was with a few of his table tennis friends. As they exited the school grounds, they saw the tree tilting to a dangerous degree.

"Look at that tree!" he remembers telling his friends. A few people screamed — and the tree swayed once more before falling to the ground with a thud.

Fortunately, it didn't hit anyone. But it did sprawl across two lanes of traffic, blocking roads, a cycling path, and the walkway.

The students could've walked away and left it to the adults.

But they didn't. Photos of Zhonghua Secondary School students working together with passers-by to clear the tree captured the public imagination, even winning the praise of Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng.

Team spirit

The youths who were at the scene were a mix of Secondary 1 and Secondary 2 students.

They didn't really know each other, coming from different classes and different CCAs.

"We just play during recess at the basketball court," Etzel said.

But when one of the boys, Cedric, suggested that they go help out together, they obliged.

One older man, who'd been at the nearby coffeeshop prior to the incident, began to direct the group.

"He went like, 'one, two, pull!' Then we just all carried [the tree]."

"It was quite heavy... I didn't expect it to be [so] heavy," one boy, Isaac, said.

How heavy, we asked.

"Like, five times heavier than my schoolbag," Isaac guessed.

"Ten times heavier than the paperwork my teacher has to carry," another boy, Aiden, said. (Speaking from experience, he assures us.)

More help

The boys had been working on one side of the road. But when Arissa and her friend exited the school, they noticed that the other side was still blocked.

"So me and my friend, we went to help... We helped to remove the branches first, so it's easier to move the tree," she said.

Another older man eventually arrived with a saw, which he used to cut the tree trunk into pieces.

In the meantime, the students continued to trim the branches off and move them to the side.

The tree bark and leaves left them with minor scratches and cuts on their hands.

But they were undeterred.

"I thought to myself, even if I get injured, it's OK. I'll rather help many people," Aiden said.

Police arrived

Etzel remembers calling the police before he went to go help.

Not long after they began their work, a man — not a resident this time — turned up with an electric saw.

"It was small, and turns very fast, and they used it to cut the tree," Arissa recalls.

A teacher eventually found them hard at work and told them that they'd done enough and to go home.

That was the end of it, or so they thought.

But unbeknownst to them, they'd wake up the next day to see their act of teamwork in the news.

Isaac remembers that his grandma called him after reading about it in the news and started praising him.

Etzel didn't tell his parents after the incident happened, only spilling the beans after his mother saw it on Facebook and noticed the familiar school uniform.

"I told her I helped also, then she was very proud of me cos it was the first time she saw one of her family members on the news."

As for Aiden, one thing stands out about his parents' reactions:

"It was the first time I heard them say 'I'm proud of you'."

Sense of fulfilment

It's been a while. When we visited the school on May 25 to speak to the students, the fallen tree — as well as a few others which had also been tilting towards the road — was gone.

The scratches and cuts on their hands have healed. There are more important things to think about now: June holidays, exams, even O-Levels.

But it's a nice memory for them, still.

One student, Darwin, still has not told his parents about his involvement in the incident. He's unsure how his mother — who he says is a little protective — will react.

But he doesn't regret it.

"It was actually quite fun, doing this with all my friends... There was a sense of fulfilment because I did something to help others."

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