Fay Describes Caning, Seeing Resulting Scars

Michael Fay, the U.S. teen-ager who was caned in Singapore for vandalism, said prison officials told him he shouted “I’m dying!” when the first stroke was delivered but he could not remember making the cry.

Fay said in an interview Friday that a prison officer stood beside him and guided him through the ordeal saying: “OK, Michael, three left; OK, Michael, two left; OK, one more, you’re almost done.”

He said the four strokes with a cane that he received seven weeks ago had left three dark-brown scar patches on his right buttock and four lines, each about half-an-inch wide, on his left buttock.

The 19-year-old said he looked at the scars in a mirror only two days ago, after being freed from prison and returning to his father’s home here, and “I got a shiver down my back, and I couldn’t believe I might have them here for the rest of my life.”

He said the caning, which he estimated took one minute, left a “few streaks of blood” running down his buttocks.

But his description of the punishment appeared less horrific than accounts of caning in the past.

“The skin did rip open, there was some blood. I mean, let’s not exaggerate, and let’s not say a few drops or that the blood was gushing out. It was in between the two. It’s like a bloody nose,” Fay said.