SOMETIMES, all it takes is a plot twist to make a seemingly mundane news piece into a comedy masterpiece.
With Hari Raya around the corner, the kids have broken out their stash of firecrackers to make some noise.
News portal Bernama recently reported that a 14 year old boy received injuries to his hand for failing to toss a lighted fire cracker in time. It resulted in two of his fingers nearly being dismembered.
What grabbed netizens’ attention was the fact that his mother, identified as Siti in the report, was 24 years old.
Seorang remaja lelaki berusia 14 tahun hampir putus dua jari tangan kanan selepas terkena mercun bola yang tidak sempat dibaling dalam kejadian di Kampung Batu 23, Labok di Machang, Jumaat lepas.
Ibu mangsa dikenali sebagai Siti, 24, berkata kejadian itu hanya disedarinya pada… pic.twitter.com/n6otkstiMN
— BERNAMA (@bernamadotcom) March 17, 2025
Perhaps this is a math problem, because Siti must have given birth to firecracker-boy when she was 10 years old.
The online community were quick to point out this discrepancy, which resulted in a good amount of head scratching and incredulousness. Take it from netizen @editdelete.
“Is the father a pedophille,” netizen @_aidilzainal_ wondered. @fairinzakaria added that likely the editor was not doing his work.
“Even the normal people who read it will realise that there was something wrong,” he said.
On the other hand, @MekSangBuaya theorised that this could be a typo, and the mother’s age could have been reversed from 24 to 42.
Several netizens, however, pointed out some other news portal which stated that the son in question was in fact a foster child, hence the age gap.
@farahhana1982 claimed the information was deliberately omitted by Bernama to gain engagement from the readers.
The news piece by Bernama further revealed that the mother realised about the injury the next day around 11.30am when her son complained of a headache.
“He complained to his cousin that he had a headache before I realized the injury on his hand. We immediately rushed to Machang Hospital for treatment,” said the woman. —Mar 18, 2025
Main image: philstar
