ALL Mrs Pauline Chua could do was watch helplessly in horror as her two screaming children lay trapped under the moving chairlift.

Her friend reacted - he rushed over and tried to stop the chairlift from moving, to no avail.

1. Operator lifts safety bar. Mum, son and dauighter, and friend's son get ready to disembark.

He continued to struggle with it and finally managed to tilt the chairlift backwards.

That was when Mrs Chua pulled her kids to safety.

It was then that staff members operating the ride noticed the commotion and hit the emergency button, she claimed.

Mrs Chua's scary experience happened at the Sentosa Luge and Skyride on Monday.

The Skyride, which is similar to a skilift, takes visitors to the top of a hill from where they can ride the gravity-driven luge carts down.

The attraction opened in September 2005.

Mrs Chua, 37, was there with her two children - Audrey, 9, and Austin, 6 - a nephew and another family of four.

'I decided to take the children there as I enjoyed riding the luge the last time,' said the customer service representative.

Her last visit there was with her children about a year ago.

On Monday, Mrs Chua sat in the chairlift with her two children and her friend's 9-year-old son.

The four of them were seated in a row, with Mrs Chua seated on the extreme left and her friend's son on the extreme right.

2. Mum and friend's son get off safely, but her son and daughter are hit by chairlift and fell.

Upon reaching the landing at the top, Mrs Chua and the children were attended to by an operator who was standing on the right of the chairlift.

He lifted the safety bar to allow them to get out.

'He told us to get out from the left side and then he left,' claimed Mrs Chua.

She said they had to hurry out of the chairlift as it does not stop moving.

But both her children fell.

And before she knew it, the kids were trapped under the moving chairlift.

Mrs Chua's friend, Dr Tengku Sinannaga, 37, who was in the chairlift in front, had got off his seat.

He said he saw the moving chairlift knock the children down.

His son, who was in Mrs Chua's chairlift, managed to get out safely.

The two fallen children were trapped and dragged along by the moving chairlift, which was carrying two luges attached to its back.

Said Mrs Chua: 'I didn't know what to do. There was no way I could pull them out as the chairlift was moving. They also couldn't crawl out on their own.

'It was frightening and I panicked.

'Luckily, her friend, Dr Tengku, a dental surgeon, reacted.

He rushed over to try and stop the chairlift from moving forward.

He managed to tilt it backwards slightly while Mrs Chua pulled her terrified children out.

Dr Tengku said he used all his force to push the chairlift.

3. Boy and girl are trapped beneath moving chairlift. They are blocked by two luges attached at back of seat.

'I was the only one pushing the chair. The kids were screaming, and I was so worried that they would get squashed,' he added.

He estimated that they were dragged for about half a metre.

It was also about then that one of the staff members hit the emergency button and the chairlift slowed down, said Dr Tengku.

Mrs Chua's daughter suffered bruises on her thigh, shin and ankle, while her son had a bruise on his knee.

'They were in shock for awhile. My daughter later asked me why it was so dangerous,' she said.

She said a supervisor apologised to them and gave them some drinks. The group then went on to complete their luge rides.

Mrs Chua said she was surprised that there were no staff members on hand to help them get out of the ride safely.

She was also upset that the staff did not act fast enough after her children fell down.

'If not for my friend, my children could have been more seriously hurt,' she said.

'MOVING FAST'

4. Friend raises chairlift backwards, while mum pulls kids out. A staff member hits emergency button.

She also felt that the ride was 'moving fast'.

Dr Tengku agreed: 'At the speed the chairlift was travelling, we had to run off in order not to get caught.

'I feel that they should regulate the speed better,' he added.

Mr Lyndon Thomas, the general manager of Sentosa Luge Company, which runs the attraction, told The New Paper that the ride was travelling 'at less than walking pace' or at 0.9m per second.

He said the management was aware of the incident and its daily records show a report of the incident.

He added that there was a staff member at the disembarking point on the right-hand side asking the visitors to alight to the left.

'I have reviewed the CCTV footage of the incident and our staff member acted very quickly in making an emergency stop and physically holding the chair back to ensure the guests could free themselves,' he said.

'The staff member was in the correct position, which is to be stationed on the right hand side, which is the closest position to the control panel and emergency stops.'

As part of safety measures in place, staff are stationed at both the loading and unloading points of the chairlift to inform visitors on how to get on and off the Skyride, Mr Thomas said.

There are also signs educating visitors on how to board and disembark from the ride.

'We have handled over two million guests on the Skyride and have had two previous incidents of a similar nature,' he added.

Mr Thomas also said the Skyride is stopped occasionally when visitors make a request or when a visitor is elderly or disabled.

The Skyride is also the used to transport the carts from the end of the luge ride back to the top, he said.

But Mrs Chua said she is unlikely to take her children back there for now as she has developed a fear for the ride.

'The ride is taken by many families with children. You don't know how dangerous it can be until someone actually falls,' she said.

This article was first published in The New Paper on May 21, 2008.