Which Agency Attends Road Traffic Acidents To Help Casualties?

[bartlett]

whilst looking through news stories the today i came accross this link -

http://www.pattayapeople.com/default.asp?F...IdArticle=18764 ***WARNING GRAFFIC IMAGES ***

at the end of the news item they seem to suggest that the drivers death was a result of a failed airbag.

is this just a way of deflecting attention from thailands rd safely laws or underfuned rescue agencies?

in my opinon ( 10years as a firefighter and road traffic accident specialist) it would have been the combined 90mph + collision causing his internal organs to rip and tear and the fact that his body was crushed within the metal wreck of his car that caused his death.

Airbags are next to useless in that situation it seems a bizzare claim!!

anyhow i digress..

in most developed nations the fire sercive deal with road traffic accidents and they have the man power ( min of 7 required) , training and techniques to use the equipment neccessay to free a body trapped with a crushed metal wreck.

i like to know which agency deals with these indents as im fairly sure its not the fire service in thailand.

ive seen some emergency vehicles parked up on highways recently but no persons seems to be working there.

i asked my gf and she shrugged her shoulders and said - the people come help them or we call police!!

[ballpoint]

Every major town has one or more "Rescue foundations", a group with minimal, or no, trauma training, usually run by the local Chinese temple. You'll see their pickup trucks with lights on the roof and "rescue" written on the back and sides. They often compete against each other for accident victims, as they can collect a fee from the hospital for bringing in a captive patient. On at least one reported occasion this has included gun shots being fired by one group to dissuade another. The unfortunate victim is usually scooped up on a stretcher in much agony, with little thought for broken necks, backs or potentially fatal splintered bones, placed on the back of the truck and raced off to the highest paying hospital. Assuming the rescue vehicle isn't itself involved in another accident on the way. If multiple casualties are involved, screening takes place at the crash site to work out who has the most money, and they are preferentially moved first. The local chapter in Surin used to have a signboard out the front with quite graphic pictures of their greatest prangs. For all I know, they still have, I haven't been down that soi for a while. Must be quite upsetting for the victims family to see.

[onnut]

What a mess! I think the normal practice is that the Sawang Boriboon "Body Snatchers" will turn up and help out with the accident victims and get them to hospital if still alive. not sure if they are dead what happens to them.

I drove past a crashed Camry (new model) a few weeks back. it was a head on collision by the looks of it and I noticed that there were no airbags inflated or deflated for that matter. this got me thinking, and now after reading this and seeing the photos of no airbags, do Camry's really have any airbags? or are they not activated because they are installed incorrectly? whats the stories with car safety over here in Thailand? all cars built in Thailand lack safety gizmos yet we have to pay more then we would pay back home, not to mention the lack of good drivers over here, you would think that the cars made for Thailand would have every safety thing going on the market.

[Thongkorn]

There are a group of people who listen to the police radios they usually first to the Seen of the accidents ,If anybody is dead they take care of the ca diva, they call them the grave robbers, because they find things off the bodies and thats how they make a living,

[khundon]

I think you will find, that the Tea Money Agency will turn up, most of the time.

[sassienie]

The fact is that if you are involved in a serious road accident in Thailand, your fate is in the lap of the Gods.

At my area in the deepest outskirts of Chiang Mai, road accident victims are usually thrown onto the back of a good Samaritan’s pick up and taken to the nearest so called hospital which is actually only a glorified clinic with limited facilities. After an hour or two the staff realise that they do not have the proper equipment and facilities to deal with the injuries, so then they throw the patient into some van with the word ambulance written on the side of it and then on to another private main hospital in the town. That of course only happens if one has the funds to pay for treatment at the main hospital, otherwise the unfortunate victim is left at the clinic until he/she either recovers or dies.

The message here is, when driving in Thailand, be afraid, be very afraid.