Pictures courtesy of Khaosod 

 

A 24-year-old Myanmar man was killed in a horrific workplace incident after falling into an industrial crusher/grinder at a factory in Chon Buri’s Khlong Kiu area. Emergency responders were called shortly after midday on 20 November 2025, but the worker had already been fatally crushed. Police have begun an investigation and will review CCTV footage to determine the exact cause of the incident.

 

Police Lieutenant Wanchai Ladnok, Deputy Inspector (Investigation) of Khlong Kiu Police Station, received the report at around 12:00 and attended the scene with Si Tham Ban Bueng rescue volunteers. The incident occurred inside a large factory where the machine involved, a sizeable industrial crusher/grinder, was operating at the time. At the scene, responders found the body of the victim, identified as Mr Saw Ko, severely mutilated inside the machinery.

 

Rescue personnel worked to retrieve the remains from the machinery, a process that took considerable time due to the extent of the injuries. A rescue officer, Paisan Pornnimittsap, stated that the team had been alerted to the fatality and discovered the victim’s body crushed beyond recognition. Initial assessments suggest the worker may have dozed off after working for continuous hours, leading to the fall.

 

Police officers will now examine security camera footage from the factory to establish whether fatigue or other factors contributed to the incident. Investigators will also interview co-workers to understand the working conditions and sequence of events leading up to the death. Authorities emphasised that findings from the investigation will guide any legal action or safety recommendations required.

 

Khoasod reported that the case highlights ongoing concerns around industrial safety and worker fatigue, particularly among migrant labourers in high-risk environments. Police and rescue teams noted that the factory would be expected to cooperate fully during the investigation.

 

 

Key Takeaways

 

• A 24-year-old Myanmar worker died after falling into an operating industrial machine at a factory in Chon Buri on 20 November 2025.

• Initial assessments suggest fatigue may have caused the worker to fall into the machine while working long hours.

• Police will review CCTV and interview colleagues to determine the cause and consider any legal consequences.

 

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 Adapted  by  Asean  Now from Khaosod 2025-11-21

 

 

Gruesome!

R.I.P.

What a horrible way to go.

 

Thai safety    none !!!!!!! 

I'm forever chatting my wife on how important safety is as she has the Thai idea that there's a short cut for everythig. Thais in general are obessesed with short cuts ahead of doing a job safely.

I was employed in the warship building industry in Australia which can be very dangerous work for a whole range of reasons.  After many serious work place injuries the management decided on a safe work policy where the workers were requested to deem their work places safe or not. After a one year trial the work place injuries and compensation pay outs reduced dramatically. The management then decided this was the way to go. The worker is first on the job so he should deem it safe or not. If there's any doubt he should consult with the safety officer.

10 hours ago, MikeandDow said:

Thai safety    none !!!!!!! 

What do you expect??? This is not <deleted> Germany!

And any further information is unlikely to be revealed to the public... unless Georgealbert follows up with typical reports on the macabre and fatal aspects of Thailand's daily misfortunes of the deathly kind.

We had an accident like this at our local pulp mill.  The inlet to the wood chipper got clogged.  The guy running the belt got on the conveyor and used his legs to push the blockage free.  He lost grip and it was a red-mist moment in the chip pile.  That was really dumb and an instant Darwin Award. 

35 minutes ago, connda said:

We had an accident like this at our local pulp mill.  The inlet to the wood chipper got clogged.  The guy running the belt got on the conveyor and used his legs to push the blockage free.  He lost grip and it was a red-mist moment in the chip pile.  That was really dumb and an instant Darwin Award. 

 

 

14 hours ago, Usnh said:

What do you expect??? This is not <deleted> Germany!

what has germany got to do with it 

I recall as little as maybe two months ago, a Myanmar technician got mangled inside some industrial shredding machine somewhere in Chonburi after someone turned it on without checking first. That appeared to be the result of either not having a LOTO (lock-out, tag-out) policy or it being ignored.

 

This incident sounds like it could be fatigue-related but, like the lack of LOTO above, that's probably not the root cause of it either.

One of the many reasons, lack of enforcement !    Thailand has a raft of safety protocols  But their is NO enforcement, No safety persons responsible to implement safety policy's also there is NO training in safety given, cost to much to do, and why do, Asian lives are cheap !!   You cannot and never will get 100% safety in any industry people get complaisant and people are stupid when safety is involved, there is alway one who wants a Darwin award.   

Sometimes the lack of safety rules and enforcement results in tragedies like this one. It very likely could have been avoided. Hopefully the owner will be forced to take some responsibility.

 

Money is not everything in life and human life should have more value. 

Nothing to recover surely.. just Mincemeat

18 hours ago, Mason45 said:

I was employed in the warship building industry in Australia which can be very dangerous work for a whole range of reasons.  After many serious work place injuries the management decided on a safe work policy where the workers were requested to deem their work places safe or not. After a one year trial the work place injuries and compensation pay outs reduced dramatically. The management then decided this was the way to go. The worker is first on the job so he should deem it safe or not. If there's any doubt he should consult with the safety officer.

 

In countries where management genuinely accepts responsibility - in developed nations such as Australia - safety systems largely work because there is both accountability and a cultural expectation that human life is not expendable.

 

But elsewhere, the reality is far darker. I have seen workplaces - in the Middle East and across much of Asia - where safety is spoken of endlessly, entire departments are created, inductions delivered, posters plastered across walls... yet the real driver remains money, and the balance between profit and protection has tipped catastrophically in the wrong direction.

 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Thailand’s treatment of its Burmese migrant workforce. These men and women occupy the lowest rung of the labour ladder - cheap, invisible, and easily replaced. Its the same in the Middle East with its migrant labour forces (think World cup and the scandal of laborers dying in construction / building football stadiums etc). 

Cost is the only metric that seems to matter. Corners are cut because corners save money, and because they are Burmese, management simply does not care. There is no accountability. Their lives are weighed against the price of a machine part, and the machine part often wins.

 

Even when companies claim to reward hazard identification, it is only the sanitised, convenient hazards that matter - the ones that tick boxes without disrupting production or exposing uncomfortable truths. The rest - the observations that actually challenge unsafe systems - are quietly discouraged. Those who speak up are branded as troublemakers. The “safety officer” must perform a delicate, cynical tightrope act: protect workers enough to avoid headlines, but never push hard enough to threaten profit.

 

And then, when someone is inevitably injured or killed, the sanctimony flows freely. Management mourns publicly while privately searching for someone to blame. Sometimes accidents are the result of reckless acts of individual stupidity, but often there is a clear systemic root cause - a chain of failures that takes weeks of investigation to piece together, though everyone already knows the truth.

 

In some places the culture of fear is suffocating. Safety is marketed as a no-blame environment, yet everyone understands the unspoken rules: report only the trivial, never the serious. Highlighting genuinely dangerous equipment risks your job. And when tragedy strikes, workers are fired for not reporting issues that management itself chose to ignore. Patterns go unrecorded, lessons unlearnt, and conditions remain unchanged.

 

This is the grim dance between safeguarding human beings and safeguarding profits. And in the factory where this Burmese man was crushed to death, that dance would have been familiar to all. Countless violations would have been known, tolerated, normalised. And still, a bright poster on the door would have declared “Safety First” or proudly referenced ISO 45001 - a hollow slogan in a place where a man’s life cost less than stopping the machine or ensuring a suitable shift pattern.

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

In countries where management genuinely accepts responsibility - in developed nations such as Australia - safety systems largely work because there is both accountability and a cultural expectation that human life is not expendable.

 

But elsewhere, the reality is far darker. I have seen workplaces - in the Middle East and across much of Asia - where safety is spoken of endlessly, entire departments are created, inductions delivered, posters plastered across walls... yet the real driver remains money, and the balance between profit and protection has tipped catastrophically in the wrong direction.

 

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Thailand’s treatment of its Burmese migrant workforce. These men and women occupy the lowest rung of the labour ladder - cheap, invisible, and easily replaced. Its the same in the Middle East with its migrant labour forces (think World cup and the scandal of laborers dying in construction / building football stadiums etc). 

Cost is the only metric that seems to matter. Corners are cut because corners save money, and because they are Burmese, management simply does not care. There is no accountability. Their lives are weighed against the price of a machine part, and the machine part often wins.

 

Even when companies claim to reward hazard identification, it is only the sanitised, convenient hazards that matter - the ones that tick boxes without disrupting production or exposing uncomfortable truths. The rest - the observations that actually challenge unsafe systems - are quietly discouraged. Those who speak up are branded as troublemakers. The “safety officer” must perform a delicate, cynical tightrope act: protect workers enough to avoid headlines, but never push hard enough to threaten profit.

 

And then, when someone is inevitably injured or killed, the sanctimony flows freely. Management mourns publicly while privately searching for someone to blame. Sometimes accidents are the result of reckless acts of individual stupidity, but often there is a clear systemic root cause - a chain of failures that takes weeks of investigation to piece together, though everyone already knows the truth.

 

In some places the culture of fear is suffocating. Safety is marketed as a no-blame environment, yet everyone understands the unspoken rules: report only the trivial, never the serious. Highlighting genuinely dangerous equipment risks your job. And when tragedy strikes, workers are fired for not reporting issues that management itself chose to ignore. Patterns go unrecorded, lessons unlearnt, and conditions remain unchanged.

 

This is the grim dance between safeguarding human beings and safeguarding profits. And in the factory where this Burmese man was crushed to death, that dance would have been familiar to all. Countless violations would have been known, tolerated, normalised. And still, a bright poster on the door would have declared “Safety First” or proudly referenced ISO 45001 - a hollow slogan in a place where a man’s life cost less than stopping the machine or ensuring a suitable shift pattern.

Very good post and very true !! but It is not only the company's who are responsible for safety but also the government !!  Thailand has safety policy's   and Government safety dept, ( Department of Labour Protection and Welfare (DLPW) for occupational health and safety, the Thailand Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (TOSH),)  but are their any prosecutions   NO !!    NO Enforcement of Policy's against a company, What will happen in this case ???   Nothing it will be forgotten   

On 11/21/2025 at 11:28 AM, MikeandDow said:

Thai safety 

 

It is Two antonyms 

Do Asians do the Wilhelm scream when plunging from a height ?