CYBERJAYA: What should have been a quiet Hari Raya morning turned into a race against time when an explosion ripped through Putra Heights last year.
For ambulance driver Mohd Razieman Maarof, it felt like driving straight into a disaster film.
The roads were empty on the second day of the holiday.
When the emergency call came in, Mohd Razieman raced 19km from Hospital Cyberjaya in under 10 minutes – a stretch that would normally take at least 25 minutes.
But speed offered no advantage against what awaited him at Jalan Putra Harmoni.
“The main exit was completely engulfed in flames. Even 500m from where the road was cordoned off, the heat was intense,” he recalled.
A young couple was trapped inside their home.
With fire cutting off access, Mohd Razieman and his team were forced to abandon their ambulance.
“We grabbed the stretcher and trekked through thick bushes and undergrowth to reach them.
“They were wailing in pain. They had tried to run, but the heat was so intense that the skin on the soles of their feet had peeled off.
“We carried them out through the bushes,” he added.
At Hospital Cyberjaya, the scale of the disaster was already visible.
Assistant medical officer Muhammad Syafiq Abu Talib had just begun his shift when a standby alert came in at 7.30am.
Moments later, his supervisor pointed out the window and they saw towering flames and thick smoke rising from Putra Heights.
By mid-morning, victims began pouring in.
“Some had burns covering up to 50% of their bodies. The blisters were so severe they couldn’t lie on their backs and we had to treat them face down,” Muhammad Syafiq said.
He said many fled with nothing, not even their MyKad.
“We had to manually record their details in the middle of the chaos,” he said.
The hospital’s psychiatric team also stepped in to calm the patients, who were disoriented and in shock, before treatment could begin.
Muhammad Syafiq ended up working a double shift.
At the emergency entrance, security guard Mohd Riza Mohd Sirat faced a different kind of battle – managing the surge.
From 8.30am, ambulances and victims flooded the hospital.
“It was chaotic because something like this had never happened before,” he said.
Working alone, he quickly created a barrier between regular patients and disaster victims to keep operations moving.
As burn victims struggled with the pain, Mohd Riza and support staff rushed to the storage, hauling out stand fans to cool them down.
“Our priority was to make sure operations ran smoothly,” he added.
