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Stop idling your engine

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    May 2010
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    Stop idling your engine

    from SCMP

    Two Hong Kong women die after Mini car found idling at side of road
    Pair were found inside locked vehicle parked on roadside in Ma On Shan with engine still running, but police source doubts it was suicide
    PUBLISHED : Friday, 22 May, 2015, 11:54pm
    UPDATED : Saturday, 23 May, 2015, 1:03am
    Clifford Lo and Shirley Zhao

    Police are investigating whether foul play was involved in the death of a 17-year-old girl and her 48-year-old mother who died after being found unconscious in a Mini Cooper in Ma On Shan yesterday.

    A police source said it did not appear to be suicide.

    The women are the wife and daughter of a professor, surnamed Khaw, at Chinese University's faculty of medicine, the police source said. The source said Khaw also worked as an anaesthetist at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin.

    Police sources said their investigation showed the pair left their home in Tai Tung village in Sai Sha Road, Sai Kung, at about 2.30pm. A jogger first noticed the yellow Mini Cooper car parked with its engine running outside Sai O village on Sai Sha Road at about 3.30pm.

    The jogger became suspicious when he returned to the area about an hour later and found the car was still parked with its engine running. When he looked inside he spotted the two unconscious women.

    The teenage girl was found in the front passenger seat of the locked vehicle and her mother was in the driver's seat.

    Firefighters broke a car window to rescue the women and attempted to resuscitate them.

    The women were taken to Prince of Wales Hospital where they were declared dead.

    "The pair were buckled up [in their seat belts]. Initial investigation showed there was no sign of fighting or struggling on board the vehicle and no obvious injuries were found on them," the police source said.

    "All the windows were closed and the engine was running. No burned charcoal was found on board."

    He said no suicide note was found and that the case did not appear to be a suicide.

    He said the cause of death, which would be determined by a postmortem examination, remained a mystery.

    Lo Kok-keung, of Polytechnic University's department of mechanical engineering, said if the incident proved not to be a suicide, the most likely theory would be that there was a crack in the car's exhaust pipe.

    Such a crack would have allowed poisonous gases to rise and seep into the passenger compartment of the car.

    He said if the women were asleep, they might not have been aware of the gases and may have passed out after breathing in too much carbon monoxide.

    "That's why you should never sleep in a car when the air conditioner is on, because it will create a comfortable environment and you tend not to wake up easily if things go wrong," Lo said.

    In 2008, a businessman, his wife and their two-year-old son were found dead at their home at Ta Kwu Ling, along with a heartbreaking letter describing how they decided to take their lives because he made a "big mistake".

    The following year, a businessman and his wife, who returned to the city from Canada to start a business, were found dead in an apparent suicide pact at their home in Yuen Long.


  2. #2

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    My wife knows this family. Very sad.
    A runner found them, according to another article. I'm now a lot more willing to break in the car windows of people sleeping in idling cars than I was before reading about this.


  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Loblaw:
    My wife knows this family. Very sad.
    A runner found them, according to another article. I'm now a lot more willing to break in the car windows of people sleeping in idling cars than I was before reading about this.
    That's terrible. RIP.

    Do we have any indication of anything wrong with the car at this point (something clearly is wrong, but any evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning so far?).
    Last edited by Cho-man; 23-05-2015 at 03:11 PM.

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  6. #6

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    Sad story. According to the Chinese press they had marital problems and a divorce was on the table. He had already a girlfriend. They had a house under both names. Target was the wife, that the daughter was in the car was a sad accident. So they say.


  7. #7

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    May 2017
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    If you do idle your car, wind down your windows a bit. At least there will be some fresh air coming in.


  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by quantzie:
    If you do idle your car, wind down your windows a bit. At least there will be some air coming in.
    Fixed it for you.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sith:
    Fixed it for you.
    LOL thanks! Been a slow morning for me
    Sith likes this.

  10. #10

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    Posted in 2015

    Police are investigating whether foul play was involved in the death of a 17-year-old girl and her 48-year-old mother who died after being found unconscious in a Mini Cooper in Ma On Shan yesterday.
    Arrests made in 2017....

    That was one long investigation apparently involving a tennis ball and a stablity ball. Weird...

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