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 Law Suk Leh, 43, was driving her 11-year-old Honda City car in
twilight on Sunday, July 27 when it collided with another vehicle
making a turn across her lane at an intersection in a quiet
industrial zone on the outskirts of Sibu, a town in the
Malaysian-ruled northwest of Borneo.
According to local police, Law, who was wearing a seat belt, was hit
in the neck by a single fragment of metal, nearly 2.5 centimeters (1
inch) in diameter, from the air bag that tore apart in the
collision. The post mortem report showed she died from a "severe
puncture wound on the neck".
Law and her 41-year-old Filipino husband were visiting family in
Sibu ahead of the Eid public holidays. They had driven down from the
nearby sultanate of Brunei where they lived and worked.
The 21-year-old driver of the other vehicle involved in the
collision told Reuters he was taking family and friends to a local
night market. He said an ambulance was called after the crash, but a
pick-up truck driver offered to drive Law to the hospital.
"Me and the woman's husband carried her to the back of the pick-up.
She had a hole in her throat and was bleeding badly. Her husband had
a cloth covering her throat, trying to control the bleeding," he
said.
"She was still alive, but couldn't speak."
Law was later transferred to an ambulance, but was pronounced dead
en route to hospital, where a baby daughter was delivered alive, but
died two days later, police said. Law's nephew, Law Ee Liang, said
his aunt had just a week left of her pregnancy. Other members of
Law's family declined to discuss the incident. Law also had a
seven-year-old son, who possibly lives with his grandparents in
Sibu, police said.
Law's husband, who told police their car was traveling at 60-70 km
(37-43 miles) per hour, suffered minor injuries in the front
passenger seat unrelated to the air bag, police said.
MORE CARS RECALLED
Confirming the fatal incident on Thursday, Honda Motor recalled
another 170,000 of its cars to have the air bags replaced, taking
its total recalls over potentially defective air bags made by
Japan's Takata Corp to almost 10 million in recent years. About 7
million cars of other makes have also been recalled.
Law's is the fifth Takata air bag-linked fatality, and the first
outside the United States. All have been in Honda cars.
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Takata has said it is the subject of a U.S. criminal investigation
over its air bags. Its executives, and those from Honda, its biggest
customer, are expected to face congressional hearings in the coming
week.
Takata has previously said problems with the inflator propellant -
the explosive that allows the air bag to inflate in a fraction of a
second on impact - can lead air bags to rupture, shooting shrapnel
into the vehicle.
While humid Florida and the steamy island of Borneo are more than
16,000 kms (10,000 miles) apart, their sticky climates may hold a
clue to some of the Takata-related fatalities.
In June, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
said it was looking into whether driving in high humidity regions
contributed to the risk of Takata air bag explosions. A line of
inquiry has been that inflators can become dangerously volatile when
the propellant is exposed to moisture - even years after
installation.
Honda said its latest recall was due to a malfunctioning conveyor at
a now-closed U.S. plant that may have exposed propellant tablets to
moisture.
Honda's Brunei branch alerted the Japanese automaker to the
Malaysian incident, police said, and a team of five investigators
arrived in Sibu about two weeks later to collect the ruptured air
bag. Police said Honda had contacted Law's family, but had no
further details.
(Writing by Ian Geoghegan; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
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