This happened to me during one of my army exercises in Thailand in 1992. We were doing a recce for an alternate deployment site for the artillery battery. It was about 3am in the f**king morning. The recce team consisted of an officer, me(technical assistant), a chao keng signaller and the driver.

Anyway, after doing the survey, I had to tie a light stick(last time we called it Salem stick) to indicate a position. I chose a tree about 100m away and tied the light stick on it. The officer had to use a device similar to those you see surveyors used in construction site to locate the position of the light stick. Anyway, after I came back, the officer asked me why the signaller didn’t come back with me. I froze because the signaller was sleeping in the land rover together with the driver. I saw the shock on the officer’s face because according to him, he saw someone beside me. Anyway, we got out of that place and we forgotten about that incident.

After the exercise and on the morning of the day we were supposed to go for our R and R, I woke up with a very very bad headache(have never experienced such pain before). I forced myself to join the R and R but fainted on the bus. I remembered drifting in and out of consciousness throughout the whole ordeal. I didn’t know what happened after that. Was told that they flew me out of Thailand together with the MO and a few other guys the next day. I didn’t even know how I got onto the plane.

I only remembered opening my eyes briefly in the ambulance and could hear the siren. I also remembered a nurse shouting at me asking me for my name. Everything was in a blur. I woke up in hospital(in Singapore) the following morning. After a battery of test after test, the doctors could not find any problem with me and could not explain why I became unconscious. But I strongly believed it has something to do with that tree. After that incident, I would always asked for permission even if it was to cut the branches of a tree during exercise.