Possibly done in minutes, or even seconds, via Immigration's database? All tourists entering the Kingdom have their faces and fingerprints recorded and (in theory at least) their address in Thailand is also recorded.
So terribly sad. RIP to the boy and best wishes for recovery to the others.
Is this belief in the "next life" perhaps connected with the recklessness that pervades Thai roads and leads to so many seemingly avoidable tragedies?
More often on arrival than departure tbf, although when you add the time taken at security and immigration you can sometimes be quite stressed to get to the departure gate in time. On arrival I recall one time that by the time I got through immigration all the baggage had been removed from the carousel and stacked up - and I was one of the first from my flight to get to immigration.