Singapore club compensates family of golfer killed by lightning

One of Singapore’s top golf clubs said on Thursday it will compensate the family of a member who died in 2009 when he was struck by lightning while playing on its course. Tanah Merah Country Club will pay the widow and son of businessman Soh Lye Huat Sg$80,822 ($64,246) in damages plus legal costs after they filed a lawsuit against the club in April last year alleging negligence. TMCC accepted a settlement offer from the family, club general manager Roy Higgs told AFP. “The club considers the matter closed and trusts that it can finally come to a conclusion,” he said, adding that legal costs would be borne by the club’s insurers. The Straits Times newspaper said it was believed to be the first time a golf club in Singapore had been sued by the family of a lightning victim. The 57-year-old victim was struck on Oct. 25, 2009, and died two weeks later of multiple organ failure, the newspaper said. According to the lawsuit, two golf rangers arrived at the scene without an oxygen pump and did not know how to operate an automatic external defibrillator that could have resuscitated the victim. Singapore, a tropical island with numerous golf courses, has one of the highest lightning activity rates in the world, with an average of 171 days of thunderstorms per year, according to the weather service. “We hope that TMCC and other golf clubs will learn from this tragedy and improve safety and emergency response on golf courses,” Soh’s family said in a statement to another newspaper, the Business Times. “This case was never about money.”