It was then that the doctor broke the bad news - he is now a quadriplegic.

Speaking to The New Paper from his hospital bed, Mr Zheng said in Mandarin: 'I was up on the tree and pruning it. I don't remember how I fell from the tree.'

To make matters worse, his employer is unable to fully pay for his medical bills.

Mr Zheng had come to Singapore in August under a work permit with a construction firm.

In September, a fellow worker introduced him to the boss of a landscaping company.

Mr Zheng said he was offered $100 for a 12-hour work day as an odd-job labourer for the company on his days off.

FORBIDDEN TO WORK

That is the same amount he earns for his job at the construction firm.

The Ministry of Manpower website states that work permit holders are forbidden from engaging in any other form of employment other than that stated in the work permit.

But Mr Zheng said the money was too good to resist.

So from September, he began doing odd jobs such as pruning trees and washing fish ponds for the company whenever he had days off.

On 9 Nov, the fateful day of the incident, Mr Zheng said he started work at 8am fixing a fish pond in a bungalow in Bukit Timah.

After lunch, the landscaping company boss, whom Mr Zheng knows only as 'lao ban', ferried him and three other workers from the Bukit Timah house to another house in the east.

Mr Zheng said he does not know the exact address of the semi-detached house.

'I have been there to work a few times, but every time, it was the boss who took me there in his lorry. All I know is that it is near a food centre in Tanah Merah,' he said.

There, Mr Zheng said he was tasked to clean the fish pond.

After he was done, he was instructed to climb a mango tree to prune it.

Mr Zheng recalled: 'The tree was slightly higher than 2m. I had a motor saw in one hand and I cut down a few branches. That's all I can remember. I can't remember how I fell from it.

'When I woke up the next morning, I was already in hospital and saw a fellow worker standing next to my bed.'

'He told me that my (landscape company) boss had brought me back to the dormitory and had wanted to leave me there.'

Mr Mao Jingshui, who is Mr Zheng's housemate, told The New Paper: 'It was about 7pm when I returned to the dormitory and saw a man standing at the door. I recognised that Sangen sometimes works for him.

'He told me that Sangen was unconscious after he fell from a tree. I followed him to his lorry and saw that Sangen was motionless.

'I told him that he should have sent Sangen to the hospital immediately instead of trying to dump him back in the dormitory.'

Mr Mao, 37, who also works at the same construction firm as Mr Zheng, immediately called his employer, who was in China at that time.

The employer told him to call for an ambulance.

By then, Mr Mao said the man who had brought Mr Zheng back to the dormitory had 'run away'.

Mr Zheng's lawful employer, who wanted to be known only as Mr Lin, told The New Paper in Mandarin: 'As the incident didn't take place at my company's worksite and Sangen wasn't working for me at that time of the accident, I can't make a claim with the insurance company.

'We have already paid $5,000 medical fees out of goodwill. There is still a $20,000 outstanding amount with the hospital.'

Mr Lin, 40, said he had not been aware that Mr Zheng was working for another company on his off days.

He added: 'But he is my worker after all. I will try my best to help him.

'I have visited him at the hospital after I returned from my China trip. I can see that he is suffering. Footing his hospital bill is not going to help much. He needs more than that.

'I've spoken to the doctors and we are thinking of how we can help him.'

Mr Zheng said he has been unable to contact the boss of the landscaping company. Attempts by The New Paper to contact him were also unsuccessful.

The circumstances of his fall also remain a mystery.

NEED HELP IN INVESTIGATION

Mr Lin said: 'We tried to ask him where the accident took place but he could not tell us. And in this state, he can't take us to the site either.

'We just hope that the house owner for whom Sangen had pruned the tree, would contact us and help in the investigation.

This is the second time that Mr Zheng has left his hometown in Zhejiang to work in Singapore. He had previously worked here from 2000 to 2005.

Mr Zheng, who has 14-year-old daughter, said he returned to Singapore hoping to make more money to clear his housing loan.

He had borrowed about $10,000 from relatives and friends to pay for his trip here.

He said: 'When I told my wife about the accident, she cried non-stop. But there's nothing she can do.'

For the past one month, Mr Zheng has been lying motionless on the hospital bed and staring at ceiling every day.

He said: 'Now I just eat and sleep, eat and sleep. I don't think of my future anymore. I miss my family very much and I really want to be back with them.'