By Vivien Chan

THE dragon boat capsized during a training session and when a group of secondary school students flipped it over in the water, they found their teammate unconscious under the boat.

It is believed that the water was only up to the boys' knees at the time.

The 13-year-old boy was later revived and is now in stable condition at the Changi General Hospital (CGH).

The incident happened on Tuesday afternoon at the Changi Coast Adventure Centre.

The centre is operated by Camelot. According to Camelot's website, the company is appointed by the Education Ministry to run the centre.

The New Paper was alerted by a swimming and sailing coach, who gave his name only as Mr Chua.

The 19-year-old was at the centre on Tuesday to help tow a sailing boat back to National Sailing Centre at East Coast Park.

He did not see the incident and said a witness related the incident to him.

A group of secondary school students was having a dragon boat training session, Mr Chua said.

'During the session, the boat capsized. When they flipped the boat over together, they found the boy underneath.'

It's not known how the boy went under the boat.

The instructor of the dragon boat team quickly carried the unconscious boy to shore.

Said Mr Chua: 'Some other instructors who were there at that time performed CPR on the boy.'

A spokesman for the Singapore Civil Defence Force confirmed that it received a call at 3.15pm that day.

An ambulance took the boy, who was conscious, to Changi General Hospital.

Yesterday, a hospital spokesman said the boy was in a stable condition but declined to give more details.

When The New Paper team visited the adventure centre yesterday afternoon, a different batch of Secondary 2 students were having their adventure camp.

The students, who were using kayaks, were wearing life vests.

A Camelot instructor who was present yesterday confirmed Tuesday's incident.

She said there were fewer than 20 people on the boat at the time.

She added that dragon boat activities are common at the camp as most adventure camps have them.

She declined to give more details, explaining that an official report had been submitted to the company.

However, when The New Paper called the Camelot office, the liaison officer claimed he did not know of any incident.

Additional reporting by Naveen Kanagalingam, newsroom intern.

This article was first published in The New Paper.