Off-duty policeman who helped elderly man reach home makes family proud

Mr Mohd Elfie Mohd Amin went out of his way to help an elderly man who was stuck on a highway divider. PHOTO: ABIGAIL NG/MOHD ELFIE MOHD AMIN FACEBOOK
Mr Mohd Elfie Mohd Amin has been a police officer in Changi Neighbourhood Police Centre for seven years. ST PHOTO: ABIGAIL NG

SINGAPORE - When Mr Mohd Elfie Mohd Amin, 30, became a police officer seven years ago, he thought it was one of the few things he could do to make his parents feel proud of him.

On Monday (June 12), he had reason to make them proud of him again after he helped an elderly man get home on his motorcycle, and a video of the incident went viral.

At a press conference on Friday, Mr Elfie told the media that his father, who is a supervisor in an auxiliary police force, and his mother, a retired nurse, have been sending him screenshots of comments on his Facebook post, where he posted the video taken on his new helmet camera.

"They've never been so glued to Facebook before," Mr Elfie said with a laugh.

The video has around 388,000 views and has been shared 5,000 times.

He was on his way home after running errands on Monday afternoon, riding along the Pan Island Expressway (PIE) at around 4pm when he saw a man standing on the divider near the Jalan Eunos exit.

No vehicle was parked nearby.

"It's only right that I stop, cause I don't know what the person's intention was, why he was there and what was going to happen next," said Mr Elfie, who had knocked off work that morning.

"He could be lost, trying to cross the road to get to the other side, or trying to cross the road to end his life. In patrolling for the past seven years, we have seen a lot," he said on Friday.

When he approached the divider, he saw an elderly man in his mid-60s standing with three plastic bags.

"He was calm, he wasn't waving or trying to stop vehicles," Mr Elfie said, adding that the man looked tired and was carrying around 10kg of rice.

"I had the thought of calling 999, but it is funny to do that when I am 999," he said.

According to the Facebook post by Mr Elfie, the elderly man had missed his stop while travelling on a bus. He attempted to walk straight towards an overhead bridge to get to his daughter-in-law's home, but ended up on the highway instead.

Mr Elfie then offered to take the man, who is visiting from India, to his son's home, where his daughter-in-law and grandchildren met him at the lift.

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