Missing
Thursday, 12th April 2007 will be remembered for a long long time to come. It’s the day we lost Bambam, the beloved ShihTzu of Daisy’s family.
Bambam is quite well known amongst friends as anyone who’s been to Daisy’s house would have met the cute and friendly doggie.
She’s been with the family for 8 years already. I’ve known her for nearly 6 years myself.
Suddenly, she vanished that fateful Thursday afternoon.
I first got the call from Daisy at about 2pm asking me to go over to her place to look for Bambam who seemed to have gone missing. It was raining very heavily since noon and Bambam is 100% terrified of rain/thunder/lightning and even dark clouds.
When I got to her place shortly after 2pm, the maid was sobbing away and unable to speak coherently to Daisy’s dad calling from Kuching where he was on a business trip. She handed the phone to me and after promising to help out, I did a quick search of the home. No sign of Bambam.
We then searched the stair well from the 15th floor downwards. Nothing. At the foot of the stairs, I bumped into Daisy’s mum hurrying home. We then started shouting for Bambam around the premises of the condo. Still no sign of her.
After that, we searched floor by floor, knocking on neighbours’ doors and ringing their bells. By the 4th floor, I went back up to the 15th floor to grab an umbrella to search the neighbourhood. Hopefully she hasn’t gone far in case she went out of the condo premises.
I changed out business slacks and searched my own home compound. A few more apartment blocks as well as the vicinity of Roxy Square. All the nooks and corners as well as the drains then gushing with rain water. I became very sensitive of any canine barks or whimpers in the area.
At 3pm, I went back to Daisy’s place. Her mum (also been crying) told me that the lady on the 14th floor saw Bambam wondering around her lift lobby. When we approached her, the lady also mentioned that the man at the adjacent unit was present when she saw Bambam. However, the man claims not to have seen Bambam and was asthmatic and hence unable to be near animals.
Both neighbours were very defensive and rather reluctant to speak to us. When Daisy’s mum and her maid went back upstairs to rest for a bit, I decided to speak to the two neighbours on my own. It was clear that the man had never seen Bambam that day. The lady however, somewhat confessed that Bambam may have slipped into the elevator as she came back home from lunch.
Piecing together
And as such, a sequence of event can be constructed.
During lunch, the maid went out to take the laundry in from the balcony to avoid the rain. While she was busy with the laundry, Bambam must have ran out of the house in fear of the thunder storm. There were only two doors open in the stairwell that day. Daisy’s home on the 15th floor and the 14th floor where the lady’s son kept a rabbit.
Bambam must have gone down to the 14th floor. When the lady came home, Bambam must have dashed into the open elevator door and was transported to the ground floor where she slipped out of the building.
Hence, we redoubled our efforts searching the entire condo compound. Every bush, drain grate, the tennis and squash courts, the swimming pool, rubbish chute; every floor countless times. Every single possibility. Naught.
This means that Bambam has gone out of the compound. By then it was nearly 4pm and I had no choice but to go back upstairs and asked the maid to cook some instant noodles to get rid of the gastric pain building up. Haven’t eaten anything that day. While eating, I started preparing a poster and printing it.
On my way out, I pasted it at the lift lobby at the ground floor and crossed the road to the police station. The visit to the police post took more than 2 hours as there was another case to be heard before I get to give my statement and lodge my report.
By 6pm, Daisy’s dad have heard about the poster and asked that a REWARD be offered and that many more copies be made and pasted around the neighbourhood. That’s our best hope now given that the more eyes the better our chances of locating Bambam.
I also left a message with the SPCA as I couldn’t get them on the phone.
I went back upstairs to print more copies of the poster. Just as I got into the house, Daisy called to say that she just alighted from the bus and thinks she spotted bambam at a bungalow nearby. I dashed down and phoned her mum as I ran towards the location described.
Turns out it was a false alarm. Daisy saw a cat that had the same skin coat colour as Bambam. At that point, I got a call from the police HQ at Bedok saying that they had a ShihTzu brought in that afternoon from nearby Poole Road. We rushed over in the heavy rain but it turned out the dog they rescued wasn’t our Bambam.
It kinda feels bad now thinking back how we left that dog in the storage bay of the police HQ when we found out that it wasn’t our dog. Cold and alone in the dark corner of the huge building. I hope it was reunited with its owner.
Have Your Seen Her?
We got home and by then it was already too dark. We immediately set about getting 100 copies of the posters printed and putting them in clear protective plastic holders. This we put up at every pillar, lamp post, column, wall, gate post, mail box, bus stop and notice board in the whole neighbourhood. By the time we were done, it was already close to 10pm. We grabbed a bit of dinner and I had to leave Daisy to finish up her work.
She had no sleep that night, fighting to overcome the sorrow of losing Bambam and getting the report due on Friday done before going back to work.
No response to the posters that night.
The next morning, I went over to Daisy’s house to help draft an ad to be place in the Straits Times. Her mum and the maid have gone to Marine Parade town centre to distribute the rest of the posters we printed the night before.
It was then her mum called me. Someone saw Bambam.
Hit by a Car
A woman claimed to have seen Bambam being carried off by a lady after being hit by a car. It was at 1pm Thursday. It was raining heavily and a crowd had gathered so she went to take a look. She said she saw a lady wrapped Bambam in a blanket and drove off.
My first reaction was to call SPCA and this time, I got through to their Lost Enquiries department. After holding for a while, the person at SPCA told me that a ShihTzu matching the description was in fact reported injured on Thursday.
I was directed to Yvonne from Action for Singapore Dogs (ASD), a non-profit organization helping in ensuring dog welfare in Singapore. Yvonne confirmed that a ShihTzu was in fact picked up by a lady named Annabelle at Marine Parade after being hit by a bus. HIT BY A BUS!
Bambam was still alive and was initially brought to Mount Pleasant. Yvonne also informed me that they later brought Bambam to Animal Clinic at Sunset Way which was cheaper than Mount Pleasant.
Thanking her, I called Daisy and her mum to tell them the good news. When Daisy’s mum heard that Bambam was actually knocked down by a bus she immediately broke into tears.
I drove her to pick the maid (still distributing posters) up from across the street and we headed off to Sunset Way.
Miracle
We got there about 11am and amazingly, there was Bambam sitting in a cage at Animal Clinic. She seemed shocked and somewhat non-responsive but otherwise very much alive. We found her!
She suffered broken ribs and hind quarters. There were also head wounds and punctured lungs. She had steroids to control the swelling on her head and painkillers for her wounds. She did not eat, drink or urinate for the past 20plus hours.
A tube had to be painstakingly inserted into her urinal tract to force the urine out and was later stitched to help her urinate for the time being. She was also given more antibiotic jabs and an IV drip to prevent dehydration.
Daisy dropped by during her lunch break. Bambam still looked blur then. At least her condition seemed stable and not critical. We went to grab a bit of food before driving Daisy back to work. Poor Daisy immediately fell asleep in the car as she has not had any since the day before.
We got back home and the maid went around taking down the posters in the neighbourhood.
Uncle cancelled his KL trip and flew back from Kuching that afternoon. I had to head back to office and an appointment in the evening. In fact, I have just gotten back from taking down the remaining posters that the maid did not manage to find. Actually someone did contact Daisy after seeing the poster to say that she did see Bambam involved in the accident.
Hopefully, I’ll get to visit Bambam tomorrow to see how she’s doing.
I’m reminded of the old hymn, Amazing Grace.
“I was lost, but now, am found…”
We’ve finally found our Bambam. Thanks to the grace of God and his heavenly and earthly angels.
If Bambam was of a larger breed, the direct head-on impact would have instantly killed her. Fortunately, she’s smaller and survived only because the bus rolled over her while driving slowly in wet conditions rather than hitting her with full frontal impact.
Still, it is nothing short of a miracle that she escaped with what seems like a few broken bones after having a huge bus run through her little body.
By the grace of God, we pray that she’ll make a full recovery.
