Boy dies in second school pickup crash
Onlookers check a wrecked pickup in a roadside ditch in Nakhon Ratchasima’s Pak Chong district yesterday. A 10-wheeled truck slammed into it, killing a 13-year-old boy and injuring 21 others.
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For the second time this week, the Northeast has seen a fatal collision between a truck and a pickup ferrying students to school. This time a 13-year-old boy was killed and 21 other children injured in a crash in Nakhon Ratchasima's Pak Chong district.
Yesterday's accident followed a collision on Tuesday between a 10-wheeled truck and a pickup in Prachin Buri, which killed six students. Chanchai Chuanpho, a Mathayom 1 student at Triarat Wittayakharn School, died on his way to hospital yesterday. Six seriously injured students, Kiartisak Kleepklang, 13, Theerapong Trisungnoen, 12, Natsuda Loyma, 12, Nattapong Sirichan, 12, Kesarin Loasri, 14, and Sunee Suaykhunthod, 9, were taken to Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital. Theerapong needed immediate brain surgery and his condition remained unstable, doctors said, Natsuda was under close surveillance as possibly requiring brain surgery. Kesarin suffered concussion while Nattapong and Kiartisak sustained lung injuries and fractured ribs. Sunee had difficulty breathing, the doctors said. Another fifteen students who sustained slight injuries were hospitalised and some were released later yesterday. At about 7am, the pickup turned across Mitraparb Road's Bor Thong Intersection into the path of a 10-wheeled truck, witnesses said. The truck driver sounded his horn, but the pickup driver did not hear it and cut in front of the truck, causing the accident, they said. The truck driver Lek Yensuk fled the scene but was later arrested. He gave a similar account to that given by the witnesses. However, pickup driver Duangrat Paesaeng, 36, insisted she checked to both the left and right before entering the intersection. Later yesterday, Pak Chong district chief Prayat Charoensri gave Bt5,000 in initial assistance to the family of the boy who died in the accident. Prayat said he would ask the Highways Department to close this dangerous intersection, where many accidents have occurred. Meanwhile, some of the students injured in Tuesday's accident in Prachin Buri were allowed to go home yesterday while seven seriously injured students remained in intensive care units at local hospitals, public health official Suchet Sathitniramai said. Colonel Chaichana Jittham of Kabin Buri police station said police have since surveyed the province's roads and found four more accident-prone spots.
Nakhon Ratchasima The Nation
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