Delay in eating from Spize bento box could have contributed to Sats officer’s death, coroner’s court hears

SINGAPORE — The mass food poisoning incident involving popular eatery Spize at River Valley came under scrutiny in court on Thursday (Aug 15) as an inquiry began into the death of one of its victims.

Mohamad Fadli Mohd Saleh, a 38-year-old auxiliary officer and father of two, succumbed to acute gastroenteritis on Nov 14 last year, about a week after he had consumed food from a bento box catered by Spize.

The coroner’s court heard that he had eaten the food at least two hours after the recommended period of consumption.

This could have played a part in his death, especially given Singapore’s warm weather and the configuration of bento boxes that provide favourable conditions for bacteria to breed, said a senior official from the Ministry of Health.

Nevertheless, several others who ate the food within the recommended consumption window also fell ill, the official noted, upon questioning by State Coroner Kamala Ponnampalam.

Security firm Brink’s Singapore had ordered the bento boxes from Spize for its Deepavali celebrations on Nov 6. In the days following the celebrations, 73 people fell ill. 

Fadli, a Sats officer who had been deployed to work at Brink’s Kaki Bukit premises that day, was the only fatality.

Spize shuttered its River Valley outlet soon after the incident.

DELIVERED BENTO BOXES AT 11.30AM

On Thursday, a police investigation officer, Senior Staff Sergeant (SSS) Raveen Kumar Praim Kumar, told the court that a human resource manager at Brink’s had ordered 88 bento boxes from Spize on Nov 2 last year, to be delivered to their Kaki Bukit and Tai Seng premises four days later.

The boxes were prepared at Spize’s River Valley outlet on Nov 6, between 9.30am and 10.30am. 

Closed-circuit television footage shows that the restaurant deliveryman drove to Kaki Bukit in his own car and dropped off the food at about 11.30am.

He consumed from one of the bento boxes himself, between 10.30am and 11am, but did not fall ill.

SSS Raveen said the deliveryman told staff members that the food should be consumed within an hour of the delivery.

The deliveryman also gave Brink’s an invoice to sign, which had the same consumption advisory. 

The invoice stated that Spize would not be held liable for the health of guests who ate the food beyond the recommended period.

At about 2.53pm, Fadli arrived with some members of his team to collect their bento boxes. He ate his food sometime between then and 4pm, before talking to his wife on the phone.

Authorities could not determine which type of bento box he had taken, or the exact time that he did so, SSS Raveen added.

FADLI'S LAST DAYS

Later that evening at about 8.30pm, Fadli began experiencing stomach pains. He had multiple bouts of diarrhoea and vomited throughout the night, and went to see a doctor at Raffles Medical Clinic in the Punggol Waterway Point mall the following morning.

By then, he had developed a fever of 39.9°C, body aches and nausea. The doctor prescribed him medicine, but advised him to go to the accident and emergency department of a hospital if his symptoms did not improve or if he developed new ones.

At 3pm on Nov 8, two days after eating from the bento box, Fadli fell unconscious and was taken to Sengkang General Hospital by ambulance. He was warded in the intensive care unit from then until Nov 14, when he went into cardiac arrest.

He was declared dead at about 7.20pm. His official cause of death was sepsis and multi-organ failure arising from acute gastroenteritis.

Mr Pream Raj, an assistant director from the Ministry of Health, told the court that of the 47 people who were eventually hospitalised after eating food from Spize, 36 – including Fadli – were diagnosed with salmonella.

Bacterial infection in food can arise from salmonella bacteria, which can be found in raw meat.

When questioned by State Counsel Gabriel Choong on whether Fadli’s delay in eating from his bento box could have been a reason behind his death, Mr Raj said it was “possible this gap between when the preparation was completed to consumption may have contributed to the death”.

Some Brink’s staff members had taken bento boxes home for their family, some of whom fell ill as well, Mr Raj noted.

State Coroner Kamala will release her findings on Aug 23.

STIFFER PENALTIES FOR ERRANT EATERIES

The Spize food poisoning outbreak was the first in a string of similar cases that happened late last year.

It was followed by outbreaks at Mandarin Orchard Hotel, FoodTalks Caterer and Manufacturer, and Tung Lok Millennium, which left more than 600 people ill. 

Even before these incidents, the number of food poisoning cases in Singapore had jumped by 40 per cent between January and October last year, compared with the same period in 2017. 

The authorities announced in December last year that they would increase penalties for such cases.

Inspections at Spize’s River Valley outlet following the outbreak uncovered a slew of food hygiene lapses, with officers finding faecal bacteria on a chopping board and a knife used for ready-to-eat food.