Five-year-old girl dies after grinder fragment pierces chest

ALOR SETAR: A five-year-old girl died when a fragment of an angle grinder used by her father to sharpen his grass cutter’s blade pierced her left chest at a house in Mukim Kubang Rotan here.

Nur Aliya Syifa Murad was playing in the compound of the kampung house as her father, who wished to be known only as Murad, was preparing the grass cutter to cut grass nearby.

A photo of a grinder which resembles Murad’s tool.

Murad, a mechanic in his 40s, when met at Nur Aliya’s grandmother’s house yesterday, said the accident happened at about 5.30pm on Friday.

“I was using the electric-operated grinder to sharpen the machine’s blade with the engine of the grass-cutting machine still running.

“All of a sudden, the grinder broke and a fragment of it flew and pierced the Aliya’s chest,” he said.

Tragic end: Nur Aliya was playing in a kampung house compound where her father Murad was sharpening his grass cutter.

He said he rushed her to the nearby Klinik 1Malaysia and she was later transferred to the Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital where she succumbed to her injury and died.

He said Nur Aliya, who was his youngest child, was inside the house when he was about to sharpen the blade.

“I don’t know when she had come out of the house. The broken fragment hit my car first before injuring my daughter,” said the distraught father.

Murad added that Nur Aliya was buried at the Muslim cemetery of the Kubang Rotan Mosque at 11.30am yesterday.

His relative, who declined to be named, said Murad and his wife fainted a few times after learning that Nur Aliya passed away.

Murad and his wife have two sons aged 12 and 18.