.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
UPDATING All Day, Every Day
THE BOY pulled from the pond at Nai Harn beach died from drowning overnight on Monday after his family was persuaded to allow doctors and nurses to remove life-support. His death is likely to stir interest in safety at Phuket's beaches. No official figures on drownings on Phuket have been made available since April, 2012.
Original Report
PHUKET: Doctors fear for the life of a nine-year-old boy plucked from the seaside pond at the southern end of Phuket's Nai Harn beach in a coma late this afternoon.
Screams of relatives about 5.30pm disturbed the atmosphere at the beach, where the Phuket Lifeguard Club had been holding a competition on the sands to mark the organisation's 12th anniversary.
Five children have drowned in the pond since 2010 and doctors fear the boy may become a sixth victim.
Lifeguards ran to the spot and helped to free the boy, who had become trapped underwater in the channel that leads from the inland lagoon to form the natural pond close to the beach.
The boy remains in the intensive care unit at Vachira Phuket Hospital in Phuket City. Doctors are fighting to save his life.
The channel between the lagoon and the pool is a death trap that has claimed the lives of at least five children in as many years.
For a time, a grille and a series of buoys surrounding the channel prevented children from entering the water there. Signs around the pond warned people: ''Watch Your Children.''
It's not clear why the grille and the surrounding series of buoys have been removed, or whether the warning signs can still be found at the pond.
The Phuket Lifeguard Service, a business with a loose connection to the club, provides 88 lifeguards to patrol 13 of Phuket's best-known beaches.
The service withdrew its lifeguards on Thursday because no annual contract has been negotiated with the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation, which budgets 22 million baht for wages and provides equipment.
The pond at Nai Harn, however, is not considered to be an area patrolled by lifeguards. In the past, the local council has taken responsibility for the safety of picnickers who swim there.
Rawai Mayor Aroon Soroj could not be contacted tonight.
The mayor was on Nai harn beach in October last year as lifeguards tried in vain to revive a German visitor, Frank Retsh, 34.
After witnessing the drowning, the mayor said: ''We must do whatever we can to stop this from being repeated.''
An 11-year-old girl drowned at Nai Harn's beachside pond in January, 2014. A seven-year-old boy drowned at the spot in February 2012.
A six-year-old drowned there the previous month.
Those deaths followed the drowning of a boy named Max, who died there on New Year's Day in 2010.
Today's sad incident was yet another indication that the safety of tourists and residents who swim is not a high priority with Phuket's authorities.
With the deadly monsoon season nearing when dangerous undercurrents claim lives, the lifeguards are expected to be off Phuket's beaches for at least four weeks.
Let us see what Mayor Aroon can explain, after reaching him, about the removed grill and buoys at that pond.( his and his council responsibility) That pond is a well known play ground/water for young thai children during weekends.
I guess the thai parents of this young boy now have their thoughts about last year Mayor Aroon's words ('we must do whatever we can to stop this from being repeated). Well,...
Posted by Kurt on March 30, 2015 06:54