Undergraduate Justinian Tan was killed while his friend Brandon Yeo broke a bone in his thigh in the Aug 25 accident. The duo and four other friends had driven across the Causeway for supper.
The victims’ friends had said earlier that the Johor police told them that the driver was not arrested even though he had turned himself in.
In a telephone interview with TODAY, Dzulkhairi said the driver involved in the accident “will be arrested”.
Tan, a student at Kaplan Singapore, was pronounced brain dead at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) on Monday, and taken off life support early on Wednesday.
The accident happened at about 3am on Aug 25 when the six friends, all primary schoolmates, were about to enter their car parked at Jalan Dato Abdullah Tahir, about a 15-minute drive from the Johor Baru customs complex.
Another car swerved towards them, hitting Tan and Yeo.
Yeo, an insurance agent, broke his femur, but has since been discharged from hospital.
Joshua De Rozario, a member of the group, told TODAY the errant car’s brake lights were not even on, and it “kept going straight” at them.
“Justinian flew about 15 to 20 metres (and started) choking and moving frantically with blood in his mouth,” said the 25-year-old medical imaging student, who tried to remove the blood and saliva from his friend’s mouth.
The driver then drove off instead of helping them, the friends said. The rest of them were not injured.
The police and ambulance arrived about 30 minutes later. By then, about 100 people had gathered along the street.
When the victims arrived at Johor’s Sultanah Aminah Hospital, De Rozario said they were asked to pay RM2,700 first before the medical crew would conduct scans on the two men, according to the news report.
The friends were told of the duo’s prognosis about four hours later.
The hospital then requested another RM1,350, as Tan needed an operation because he had severe bleeding and a blood clot in the left side of his brain.
His parents, who had arrived at the hospital by then, were told their son had a “50-50 chance of survival”.
However, when they were told that the brain operation would be conducted by a “medical officer” instead of a surgeon, the family asked for Tan to be transferred to SGH, said Jaslene Tan, 29, one of his three siblings.
The family also sought help from the Singapore Consulate-General in Johor Bahru for the cross-border hospital transfer, and it arranged for a Malaysia-operated private ambulance.
Jaslene said the ambulance ride back to Singapore took an hour and 15 minutes. The ambulance personnel told the family that they could not use the ambulance siren as they might be issued with a traffic summon.
By the time Tan was admitted to SGH, it had been almost 10 hours since the accident. Doctors at the hospital said that too long a time had passed, and “Justinian’s injuries were too severe”, said De Rozario.
De Rozairo filed a police report on Tuesday upon hearing that the car had been identified.
Peter Ong, director of Templars Law LLC in Singapore, told TODAY that in a hit-and-run case, the Malaysian police would typically “find the plate number and go to the (driver’s) house” to complete a report.
“They might not arrest on the spot, but they may charge the person when investigations reveal (more) later … (It’s not unfair in the sense that) they are still investigating the incident. It is not letting him (the driver involved in an accident) off,” said Ong, a Malaysian who used to practise law in his country.
“But in Singapore, they would arrest first, then (the driver) would be let out on bail.”