Two days to bring a dead body out of the forest

BELURAN - A dead body weighing over 100 kilograms plus a poor weather caused the fire brigade to take two days to bring out the deceased from the forest last Friday.

The body of a 24-year-old Indonesian was finally managed to be taken out of the Borneo Timber Sungai Pinangah forest on Saturday after a series of challenges.

Beluran Fire and Rescue Station chief Edoen Macheal said that he received a call about an incident at 6.30am on Friday.

"According to the call, there was a sick person in the forest who needed help to get to the hospital.

"According to the caller's information, the victim and his two friends were hiking and studying the forest, but suffered from body pain and were unable to continue the journey," he said when contacted by Sinar on Sunday.

Edoen said that a total of three fire fighters were deployed to the scene which is about 132 kilometres away when travelling with a four-wheel drive.

"The fire fighters that were on their way to the location then received a follow-up call at 2.25pm and was informed that the victim had died.

"Upon arrival, the victim was lying in the tent and believed to be unconscious.

"At 6.21pm on the same day, the fire brigade started the operation of removing the victim using a scoop stretcher, but was delayed due to rain which caused the steep hill path to become slippery besides the dark surroundings which made the operation difficult," he said.

Edoen added that the operation to bring out the victim continued at 5am on Saturday with the help of the Sook Fire and Rescue Station team.

"The victim was then successfully taken out of the forest and handed over to the police before being confirmed dead," he said.

Edoen noted that due to lack of coverage of the Government Integrated Radio Trunk (GIRN) and telephone line at the scene, it was difficult to transmit information.

"The operation ended at 11.20pm on Saturday. However, information about the operation was only sent at 12.30pm on Sunday due to circumstances," he said.