Boy, 7, dies after rescue as real Phuket drownings toll revealed

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Boy, 7, dies after rescue as real Phuket drownings toll revealed

Shela Riva

 

Phuket's lifeguards have already safely rescued 265 foreigners and 29 Thais so far this year. Photo: Tanyaluk Sakoot

 

PHUKET: -- The 7-year-old boy rescued and revived at Nai Harn Lake earlier this month has become the sixth person to die from a drowning incident at Phuket beaches this year, the chief of the island’s lifeguard service has confirmed.

 

The boy, Kietmondej Traiyuang, was unable to recover from extensive brain damage and died about one week after the incident, Phuket Lifeguard Service President Prathaiyut Chuayuan told The Phuket News today (Aug 31).

 

Kietmondej was in the care of Vachira Phuket Hospital after he was pulled from the water in Nai Harn lake, albeit unconscious and unresponsive after lifeguards performed CPR. 

 

Full story: https://www.thephuketnews.com/boy-7-dies-after-rescue-as-real-phuket-drownings-toll-revealed-63692.php

 

-- © Copyright Phuket News 2017-08-31

[LivinginKata]

 

RIP innocent young boy ...

[impulse]

The first problem I see is a "No Swimming Here" sign with no explanation that there's a rip tide.  And in the background, several people swimming as if to beckon anyone who just paid a month's salary for a trip to the beach and the water really looks fine.  If there was a sign explaining the rip tide, (and someone shagging the swimmers out of the water) perhaps people would take the warning seriously.

 

I guess I'm also jaded in Asia by the fact that I don't recall ever once seeing an Asian pilot turn off the "Seat Belt" sign, even on a 12 hour flight.  Hard to take signs seriously if they're so often just a way to deny liability as opposed to warning of real danger.  It's like the boy who cried wolf...

 

[Jimi007]

1 hour ago, impulse said:

The first problem I see is a "No Swimming Here" sign with no explanation that there's a rip tide.  And in the background, several people swimming as if to beckon anyone who just paid a month's salary for a trip to the beach and the water really looks fine.  If there was a sign explaining the rip tide, (and someone shagging the swimmers out of the water) perhaps people would take the warning seriously.

 

I guess I'm also jaded in Asia by the fact that I don't recall ever once seeing an Asian pilot turn off the "Seat Belt" sign, even on a 12 hour flight.  Hard to take signs seriously if they're so often just a way to deny liability as opposed to warning of real danger.  It's like the boy who cried wolf...

 

Since you don't know the area, I'll give you a clue. The kid didn't drown at the beach. He drowned in a lagoon that some times of the year breaches the sand berm and empties through the southern end of Nai Harn Beach. A lot of the year it doesn't empty into the sea. It looks like a calm lagoon, but it is feed by the lake across the road through a channel, which creates an undertow. There are no lifeguards on duty there as it not part of the beach according to the local officials. The beach lifeguards aren't under contract with the Rawai municipality who is responsible for the lake, Wat and lagoon there. At least two or three kids drown there every year, still no lifeguard. They put up waring signs, flags ropes and still kids drown there every year. My landlords great grandson drowned there last year and more "improvements" were made near the drainage canal. Still not enough obviously. 

[Khun Paul]

So the story title picture is wrong, that leads to mistakes and also do the authorities really care .............NO !!!!!!!!!!!!

[jobwolf]

11 hours ago, impulse said:

The first problem I see is a "No Swimming Here" sign with no explanation that there's a rip tide.  And in the background, several people swimming as if to beckon anyone who just paid a month's salary for a trip to the beach and the water really looks fine.  If there was a sign explaining the rip tide, (and someone shagging the swimmers out of the water) perhaps people would take the warning seriously.

 

I guess I'm also jaded in Asia by the fact that I don't recall ever once seeing an Asian pilot turn off the "Seat Belt" sign, even on a 12 hour flight.  Hard to take signs seriously if they're so often just a way to deny liability as opposed to warning of real danger.  It's like the boy who cried wolf...

 

Which part of NO SWIMMING don't you understand???

 

[impulse]

18 minutes ago, jobwolf said:

Which part of NO SWIMMING don't you understand???

 

The same part as the "Seat Belt" light that never gets turned off.  So everyone has to violate the rules.  Unless they want to pee in their seat.

 

 

[impulse]

10 hours ago, Jimi007 said:

They put up waring signs, flags ropes and still kids drown there every year. My landlords great grandson drowned there last year and more "improvements" were made near the drainage canal. Still not enough obviously. 

 

It's not very different from putting up Speed Limit and No U-Turn signs, then slapping each other on the back for a job well done, while traffic fatalities mount up because ignoring the signs carries no consequences.  

 

Something's not working.  They can either do it better, or accept the drownings (and the traffic fatalities) as someone else's fault because they've done their job by putting up the signs.  Except that their job isn't to put up signs.  It's to protect the public.  Sometimes from themselves.  The photo in the OP says it all.  The signs themselves aren't adequate.

 

Edited September 1, 2017 by impulse

[steelepulse]

The photo in the OP is not for the area this boy drowned at.  Jimi007 is correct in that this kid drowned in the lagoon ( I have personally rescued a drowning boy there as his parents that couldn't swim stood watching and calling for help).

[Cranky]

It took years to make warnings clear, smoking for instance - from "May harm your health" in the '80's to today's "Smoking Kills".

 

The sign doesn't even say "DANGER", about as much use as "Don't drop litter"

[YetAnother]

6 hours ago, impulse said:

as someone else's fault because they've done their job by putting up the signs.  Except that their job isn't to put up signs

Exactly right, I used to ask the thais about what amounts to your last sentence and they would give me, paraphrasing only slightly, the excuse that they were done ,totally avoiding the root issue;

I have since been advised that this is a bad approach and it offends the Thai;

This insinuated responsibility is something they will never accept

Edited September 1, 2017 by YetAnother