(Bloomberg) -- “Mummy -- Car!”

Welhelmo Rodriguez Caido Jr., 41, blurted out the warning as hewas riding in the passenger seat of a Honda City driven by hiswife, whom he endearingly called Mummy. A moment later, as theyentered an intersection in the Malaysian town of Sibu on July 27, acollision with an oncoming car set off the air bag with such forceit knocked Caido out.

On the driver’s side, the inflator inside the air bag, made byTakata Corp., malfunctioned and ruptured, firing a one-inch-wideshard of metal into the neck of his wife, Law Suk Leh.

Law, 43, and eight-and-a-half months pregnant, died on the wayto the hospital, becoming the first reported casualty outside theU.S. in the deepening air-bag crisis gripping the auto industry. Inthe U.S., Takata air bags, used by carmakers including Toyota MotorCorp., Honda Motor Co. and General Motors Co., have been tied tofour deaths and at least 139 injuries, according to governmentreports, lawsuits and automaker disclosures.

“Takata deeply regrets the injuries and fatalities that haveoccurred in accidents involving ruptured air-bag inflators,”Chairman Shigehisa Takada said in a statement yesterday. HideyukiMatsumoto, a spokesman for Takata, today declined to commentspecifically on the Malaysian accident.

Safety Regulations

The Malaysia crash graphically illustrates how the globalizationof the car industry also means the globalization of auto safetyproblems. And unlike the U.S, with its network of federal and statesafety agencies, recall notices and lawyers willing to pursue casesagainst manufacturers, drivers are at risk in Asian countries whereauto safety regulations lag and authorities wash their hands of anyduty to alert drivers of potentially lethal defects.

“The incident is probably a wake-up call for Malaysia and otherAsian countries,” said Jochen Siebert, managing director at JSCAutomotive Consulting, which advises carmakers. “People in Malaysiaand other Asian countries will now ask Honda about whether theircars are affected. This will force governments to speed to theprocess of formalization of regulation of safety in cars.”

Caido’s second-hand 2003 Honda wasn’t among the more than 13million vehicles recalled worldwide because of defective Takata airbags. Honda called back another 170,000 vehicles last month afterinvestigating the Malaysia death, Kosuke Kachi, a Tokyo-basedspokesman, said by phone. Owners of affected cars were notified bymail and phone calls, and the company posted the information on itswebsites.

Recall Warnings

In the U.S., the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrationhas issued several warnings on the matter and pushed carmakers tohasten their recalls. Takata rejected its demand to expand thesafety campaign nationwide, NHTSA said in a statement. The agencysaid it would review the air-bag maker’s response and determine thenext steps.

Even so, NHTSA is still being accused by members of Congress fornot doing enough. Lawmakers are questioning Tokyo-based Takatathrough hearings reminiscent of the scrutiny faced by GM this yearover faulty ignition switches and Toyota for unintendedacceleration in 2009-2010. The media report on the issue asfront-page news.

The Malaysian police are leaving it up to Honda and Takata toinform the public of their faulty air bags and aren’t planning anypublic service campaigns to spread the message wider, said MohdFuad Abdul Latiff, Malaysia’s federal traffic police chief.

‘Responsibility Ends’

“Our responsibility ends there,” Mohd Fuad said. Prosecutorswill now pick up the case. The transport ministry did not reply toan e-mail seeking comment.

Honda didn’t disclose the Malaysia accident until Nov. 13,though it learned in August of the incident that resulted in thedeaths of Law and her unborn child. Honda, Japan’s third-largestcarmaker, would disclose about two weeks later that it hadunderreported injuries and deaths from vehicle defects 1,729 timesin the U.S. over 11 years, eight of those cases involving rupturesof Takata air-bag inflator.

“We apologize to the people who died in Honda cars equipped withTakata-made air bags as well as their families, and we want to sendour sincere condolence,” said Atsushi Ohara, a spokesman for Honda.“We will exert every effort to replace the parts for vehiclessubjected to recalls.”

Road Deaths

Most Asian auto-safety supervision lags behind the U.S. TheUnited Nations estimates that more than 700,000 lives are lost eachyear through road traffic accidents, costing one to three percentof gross national product in economic losses. One key challenge isthe availability of reliable and regular accident and fatalitydata, which is collected by different ministries and agencies. Thelack of mechanisms to share information results in uncoordinatedresponses, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission forAsia and the Pacific said on its website.

In India, where road accidents claim one life every fiveminutes, the government is trying to pass a law to set up aNHTSA-like agency to oversee recalls and set crash-test standards.Thailand’s transport ministry and police have said they’re notaware of any incidents involving suspect airbags.

The lack of widespread knowledge of the Takata air-bag defectmay be particularly dangerous in Asia. Takata has said that the airbags are most prone to malfunction in humid environments, whichcharacterizes most of Asia’s developing countries.

Legal Recourse

Asians also don’t have the same avenues to seek legal recourseagainst manufacturers. At least nine cases have been filed thisyear in U.S. courts claiming deaths or personal injuries caused byexploding Takata air bags. Takata also faces at least 50 proposedclass actions in the U.S. brought by customers seeking payment foralleged losses in vehicle value connected to the recalls, withHonda named in all but two of these cases.

Most Asian countries, by contrast, have restrictions on classactions or group litigation.

The following story is based on interviews with Caido, Malaysianauthorities, hospital staff and the driver of the other vehicle.Law’s sister declined to beinterviewed for the story while heruncle, who authorities saidhelped link herdeath to the air bag based on his research,couldn’t be reached for comment.

‘Wonderful Sunday’

July 27 began as a “wonderful Sunday” for Caido and his wife andtheir seven-year-old son, Welhelm. Caido didn’t get to spend muchtime with his family after he joined Adinin Works & Engineeringover a year ago as an electrician in an offshore rig, where he’dhave to spend eight-week stretches in between two-week breaks. Eventhe heat -- it was Sibu’s hottest day of the year, withtemperatures reaching 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit) --didn’t distract from the day.

The family had come there two days earlier from their home inBrunei to visit relatives before making their way to Kuching, thecapital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, where Law was due todeliver her second baby on Aug. 16.

Caido had been with Law for 10 years and got married in 2009.The family was excited about their soon-to-come second child, whowould be named Elsa after the snow queen featured in Walt DisneyCo.’s animated hit “Frozen.” Their son chose the name. While Caidowould usually call his wife “Mummy,” she’d call him “Papa.”

In the morning, Caido bought food and some hair dye for hiswife, a music teacher at the Symphony Music School in Brunei, whowas graying at 43.

“I told her ‘Mummy, at our age, we have to use color to lookpretty,’” Caido said. “She was very pretty and very happy. It was avery wonderful Sunday.”

Drive Home

That evening, the couple went to church and left their sonbehind with his grandparents because he was hyperactive. They tooktheir car, a Honda City Law bought around 2005, with seats wrappedin plastic and still in good condition. During the drive home, withMummy at the wheel, they talked about the coming baby and how theywould care for her.

Then at around 7:40 p.m. came the intersection.

The car opposite Caido’s was a Toyota Corolla Altis, whosedriver asked not to be identified because the investigation isongoing. The Toyota driver was headed for the night market with hisbrother, their girlfriends and a couple of cousins. As the driverbegan a right turn, his uncle, who was in a separate car behindhim, honked at him to indicate he was going the wrong way. Thedriver said he tried to slow down when the collision occurred,though the impact wasn’t very hard.

A ‘Bump’

Caido recalls the accident as more like a “bump” than a full-oncollision. As he awoke from a few seconds of unconsciousness, heturned to his side and said, “Mummy, are you OK?” She didn’trespond. He quickly got out and rushed to open her door.

“I saw a lot of blood coming out from her neck,” Caido said latelast month in his first media interview. “I started panicking.”

Caido tried to cover the wounds with his hands. He then shoutedfor assistance to remove her from the car and bring her to thehospital. Someone said they had called an ambulance.

“I said I could not wait for the ambulance and please, please ifanyone could help us,’” Caido said.

Bystanders, including passengers in the Toyota, helped Caidomove his wife onto the back of a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck. Onewitness at the scene said Law was still alive gasping for breath,though bleeding profusely.

Sibu Hospital

As they rushed toward the hospital, Caido was holding hisbleeding wife, uttering “don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’tleave me.”

About 10 minutes later, they spotted an ambulance, and waved itdown. As the paramedics transferred his blood-soaked wife and triedto save her, Caido sat down in the ambulance and began to pray.

At the Sibu Hospital, a doctor, after learning the length of thepregnancy, told Caido they would remove the 37-week-old fetus fromthe womb. While Caido didn’t yet know if his wife was alive, shehad been pronounced dead on arrival.

An emergency cesarean section was performed on Law, and Elsa wasrushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. Her heartbeat was weakas her mother’s death deprived her of oxygen.

A hospital staff member soon delivered the news that his wifewas gone and that their baby was in critical condition.

“I was shaking,” Caido said, his voice breaking in anguish. “Icould not believe it.”

The night of the accident, he returned from the hospital andwent to bed with his son. In the coming days, he explained toWelhelm that his mother was in heaven, unable to tell him directlythat she had died.

On July 29, two days after the accident, Caido was told Elsawouldn’t make it because her heart was too weak. The hospital toldCaido they’d detach the ventilator sustaining Elsa so he could holdhis baby for the last time.

“I told her to take care of her Mummy wherever they go,” Caidosaid in tears. “She slowly died in my arms.”

--With assistance from Siddharth Philip in Mumbai, CraigTrudell and Ma Jie in Tokyo, Margaret Cronin Fisk in Detroit,Masatsugu Horie in Osaka, Andrea Tan in Singapore and AnuchitNguyen in Bangkok.

Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.