Pattaya Man Dies Of Scorpian Bite.......

[R123]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007310847,00.html

[Mobi]

With all due respect, why don't you cut and paste the article, so that we can all read it without having to click on links?

A BRITISH man has died after being stung on the THUMB by a scorpion.

Dad-of-three Gareth Pike, 56, was attacked by the creature at his home in a jungle village in the south of Thailand.

The retired businessman tried to suck out the poison but fell ill and was treated in a local hospital where he failed to improve.

He flew to his home town of Barry, South Wales, and was admitted to the special diseases unit at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales.

But after being released following an improvement, Gareth was re-admitted and died with internal bleeding and a damaged liver.

Gareth lived in a village outside Pattaya with his Thai wife.

Before his horrendous death, he told of his ordeal. He said: “I was living in a tin shack in the jungle and there were lots of black scorpions around.

“I was getting dressed one morning when I was stung on the thumb.

“I had a blister come out on my thumb and foot and I came out in a rash. I was in dreadful pain.

“I lost half my body weight and I felt very ill. I was glad to get home.”

His sister Pamela Roberts, of New Forest, Hants, said: “They should never have let him out of hospital. I brought him home from Thailand to get him better and now he’s lying dead in a hospital morgue.”

She added: “We’re all so upset — I loved him to bits.

“He was so full of life. He loved dancing, having a laugh and golf. He had so much more living to do.”

Gareth moved to Thailand two years ago after selling his property firm in Barry along with a plush penthouse. He leaves three children from an earlier marriage — daughter Natasha, 21, and sons Daniel, 14, and ten-year-old Harry.

The Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan Coroner is investigating his death.

The Sun

[Humphrey Bear]

Very few scorpions give a fatal bite - about 1% of all known types (6 out of approx 600)

This seems to have been an allergy, rather than the venom itself.

A good Thai hospital is probably better equipped to deal with animal venoms than a UK hospital - has all anti-venom treatments on hand, whereas there are not too many poisonous creatures in S Wales.

[Penkoprod]

Very few scorpions give a fatal bite - about 1% of all known types (6 out of approx 600)

This seems to have been an allergy, rather than the venom itself.

A good Thai hospital is probably better equipped to deal with animal venoms than a UK hospital - has all anti-venom treatments on hand, whereas there are not too many poisonous creatures in S Wales.

Obviously he wasnt staying in a good Thai hospital, then

The retired businessman tried to suck out the poison but fell ill and was treated in a local hospital where he failed to improve.

He flew to his home town of Barry, South Wales, and was admitted to the special diseases unit at Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales.

But after being released following an improvement, Gareth was re-admitted and died with internal bleeding and a damaged liver.

Gareth lived in a village outside Pattaya with his Thai wife.

Penkoprod

[Mobi]

Humphrey Bear

A good Thai hospital is probably better equipped to deal with animal venoms than a UK hospital - has all anti-venom treatments on hand,

Agreed

Humphrey Bear

there are not too many poisonous creatures in S Wales.

Charlotte Church?, Catherine Zeta Jones?

[coventry]

I have read on the Internet that there are no poisonous Scorpions in Thailand and any resulting stings from them are no more than equal to being stung by a Bee. As for suffering shock I think he would have died within the hour of being stung if this was the case. Any comeback from the autopsy ?

[bkkmick]

Surely that's just a 'nice' version of the story about the Welsh guy being kidnapped, locked in a shed in the jungle etc....story that's running elsewhere in TV (unless it's quite common for Welsh guys to die of scorpian bites)

Edited July 12, 2007 by bkkmick

[bkkmick]

<stopbeinglazy>

Here's the link: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=123331

</stopbeinglazy>

I think that the sun would prefer the above version.

Edited July 12, 2007 by bkkmick

[Humphrey Bear]

Go to the thread indicated by the previous poster - it's a scream!

[colino]

yes yes i know

R.I.P.

[EmCross]

Go to the thread indicated by the previous poster - it's a scream!

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic! It is obviously the same story and the poor guy died. It just goes to show how bad things can get if you fall for all the traps in Pattaya; he was obviously very naive.

[bkkmick]

It also shows you how two different reports on the same story can result in two completely difference stories!

[Kerryd]

It also shows you how two different reports on the same story can result in two completely difference stories!

Happens alot in the Pattaya newspapers.

As for this story, if it smelled any riper, it would make prime fertilizer.

He survives FOUR months in the jungle eating mangoes and drinking dirty water.

“I slept on the floor and was forced to drink dirty brown water from a stream that ran through the jungle near the hut. The only thing to eat were mangoes that grew on a tree about a mile away."

Makes no attempt to "escape" in all that time.

"I didn’t try to escape because I didn’t think there was any way out."

Yet, after being stung, he was able to determine how much "time" he had left.

“After I was bitten I felt so awful I thought I had about a week left."

Then, despite apparently never exploring his surroundings for 4 months, he manages to stagger for miles and come across a road.

That was in January this year and, after four months in the jungle, Gareth said he suffered the scorpion bite on May 17.

Fearing the worst, he staggered for miles until he came across a road, which he followed to a village.

Meanwhile, one wonders how his wife's male relatives managed to kidnap him and get him to a tin shack in such a remote location (with no trails/paths or roads apparently).

Did they whack him on the head and carry him there (not likely).

Black-bag him and make him hike out there ? (no mention of being forced to hike for miles and miles, or hours and hours, through the jungle blind-folded).

Funny to, that in the 31 May story, he was kidnapped and dumped in the jungle.

They kidnapped him and took him to the jungle.

They left him alone in a tin shack with nothing but the clothes he had on.

In the 11 July story, he was living "at his home in a jungle village in the south of Thailand."

Dad-of-three Gareth Pike, 56, was attacked by the creature at his home in a jungle village in the south of Thailand.

Before his horrendous death, he told of his ordeal. He said: “I was living in a tin shack in the jungle and there were lots of black scorpions around."

Yep, smells pretty ripe. Guess we'll never know the truth of it now. For what it's worth, R.I.P.

[Tony Clifton]

Could be another intentionally botched police investigation with a "new and improved" version of the events to protect a guilty wife and accomplices?

What about the Russian girls murdered on the beach? How is that investigation going.

[Jimjim]

It's not that the scorpion bite killed him, it's probably that he was suffering from his time in the jungle in unsanitary conditions.

[pattaya_girl]

I dont believe that the Scorpion bite killed this man. I think he maybe died of a Broken Heart. He certainly sounded fed up towards the end, very depressed in his last months. R.I.P. Its a sad story if it is true.

[sibeymai]

Hey pattaya_girl, you're not related to that famous guy "pattaya man" whose always in the news, are you ?

[pattaya_girl]

Sorry Sibeymai, i dont know a Pattaya Man. My thai partner just said that you CAN die from a scorpion bite but usualy within days after, definately not weeks or months. It certainly is a wierd story, and no doubt time will tell of what he really died of later. Poor Fella.

[Humphrey Bear]

Sorry Sibeymai, i dont know a Pattaya Man. My thai partner just said that you CAN die from a scorpion bite but usualy within days after, definately not weeks or months. It certainly is a wierd story, and no doubt time will tell of what he really died of later. Poor Fella.

If you're allergic, you can die from a bee sting. But most people do not.

There is something very weird about this whole story - quite frankly I cannot get into the mind of the protagonist or the reporter in the UK. (See alternative thread)

[mrtoad]

After coming across this little script about Gareth, it appears that maybe things were not all that they seemed. After reading this, you'll probably have less sympathy. As they say, there are always two sides to a story, and this is quite interesting.

Taken from Bangkok girls website in response to the dramatic story

What a load of crap is talked sometimes by people whose only source of information is the press!

Who on this board knew him or the women he was involved with?

What gives you the right to call his female companiond slappers?

Here’s another side to it:

I knew Gareth fairly well.

I knew him in Barry and was with him when he stepped off the plane in 2004.

He had no business left then; was divorced or divorcing; and had sold or was selling his flat and was living in a lovely caravan.

He had a return ticket but he didn’t use it as far as I remember.

He loved it here and decided to settle here so he maxed out his credit cards taking cash rather than goods.

Sometimes he would admit to £50k other times to £70k (3.5 - 5 million baht).

He sold his caravan so it couldn’t be confiscated (another £26k).

He also brought £30k over from a stash in Spain.

This was all within a few months. In that time he had also bought a house, a bar and an a motorcycle.

He had a girlfriend, Lam, whom he moved in and soon thereafter, Thai-married.

Around about this time both his parents died within 7-8 days and he wanted to to home and take Lam with him so they married in the British embassy and went back for a week or so. While there he retrieved and sold various items from an ex-girlfriend and others.

He came back ASAP, because he was worried about retribution from the banks.

(None of the reporters have done a financial scan on him that I know of).

He got back and gave up the bar because the location was no good.

I think Lam wanted to get rid of it too because she suspected he was shagging the staff ( a dozen or more girls).

He languished a while and then bought another 50%-50% with a friend.

He got up to his old tricks with the staff and Lam beat him up one night when he was drunk, which was a daily norm.

He was in hospital with a broken hand and other injuries for 3-4 days.

They tried to make a go of it for a while, but Lam no longer trusted him and, to be honest, her judgement was correct.

They proceded to divorce and Lam tried to take everything, but Gareth had cleverly (and rightly) put the house and bar in a company name.

She took the car, furniture and two motorcycles and had the house trashed.

Suspecting more reprisals, he sold the house and moved into the bar with the head girl, Erna.

Gareth sold the bar, but conned the purchaser out of 100% of the key-money and took of with Erna to her home village in Korat, Isaan.

He probably had 1.3m Baht (£18k).

He bought a car to go there and that’s where I lost touch.

A mutual friend, however, kept me informed.

He arrived there and built a house-shop or a house and shop; he was vague.

They were happy for a while, but it seems that the villagers didn’t patronise his shop and soon he didn’t have much money left.

His visa was close to expiry too. He had been relying on monthly extensions until the law changed last October (so that you could only have three in a row and then get out for 90 days), because he didn’t have the 800,000 (£12k) to get a 12 month visa.

With his last 16,000 Baht he phoned our friend and asked what we thought about him using that to bribe the border guards into giving him a 12 month stay.

He was also ill by now with “black blood coming out of his nose” (quote Jan 2007). I advised that he give himself up at the embassy and go home.

He signed the car over to Erna and told her to go back to Pattaya to earn some money in a ‘massage parlour’.

I don’t think he ever heard from her again. She took his mobile phone too and stopped taking our friend’s calls and we never heard from him again.

#The next thng we heard he was back in the UK and then, sadly, that he had passed away.

He did NOT go to ‘live in the jungle’; it seems that he had untreated Hepatitis (’B', I think) for at least several months and eventually died of it. He could have infected 100’s as it is very contagious. He never ‘invested’ in health insurance, despite being advised to and in the end probably could not afford to go to a doctor.

Nobody but Gareth and Erna know exactly what happened after he left Pattaya and I don’t think Gareth would have told the whole truth anyway - he went back on a sympathy ticket.

Erna might be more forth-coming if anybody’s really interested.

1] A couple or random points, though, I’m pretty sure he never married Erna; Lam, his real wife was the injured party, so all this talk about his Thai bitch-wife are rubbish.

2] He did NOT come out here because he had fallen in love while on holiday.

3] The only real visas he had were his first 30 days and a couple of Cambodia extension runs - he paid for a fake 12 month visa in Pattaya (his one & only) and thought he could do it again in Isaan.

4] When he got home he was on about 4 months overstay.

His sister, probably does not know 10% of what went on and I haven’t said everything here; she loved him and I understand that, but she lived 120 miles from Barry and 5,500m from Pattaya. she is not doing him or herself any favours by trying to whitewash his name, because sooner or later someone, or most likely, dozens who knew him better will want their say.

Maybe his ex-wives in the UK; his ex-business partners in the UK; his brothers and his kids; “friends” in Barry; his only Thai wife, Lam; Erna and the dozens of other girls; his parter in the bar, whose key-money he kept; and last but not least the Isaan family he went to live with.

Tom -

[LaoPo]

As you said: "quite interesting"...indeed.

LaoPo