SEA Games: Sepaktakraw player quits after deadly crash

SINGAPORE – Singapore’s Azreen Sairudin has quit sepaktakraw after he was seriously injured and lost his younger brother in a motorbike crash during the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, a report said on Monday.

The 25-year-old told The New Paper it was “too painful” to continue in the volleyball-style sport after the crash on June 7, a day before Singapore’s first match at the multi-sport SEA Games.

Azreen was giving his brother Aqil, 21, a lift when they were both flung from his motorbike in the early-hours accident on one of the city-state’s highways.

“I can still hear my brother’s voice in my head,” Azreen told the newspaper. “We were both lying on the ground and he told me, ‘Azreen, I’m in so much pain’.

“Those were his last words.”

Azreen broke an arm and a little finger in the crash and suffered severe bruising and abrasions which required skin grafts. He spent 13 days in hospital, including 3 in intensive care.

His psychological wounds remain acute after the loss of a brother with whom he was so close that they used to share a bed at the family’s 3-room public housing apartment.

“It’s like a bad nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Azreen said, adding: “I still cry every day when I think of him.” – Rappler.com