Thailand: The Inside
Job
December issue.
In this issue:
1. Just for fun
2. Woman zapped by her own security device
3. Sole food
4. Deep throat dentistry
5. Gasoholic
6. Bottled up
Top
1.-Just for fun
SONGKHLA: A 23-year-old Marine private on leave from a posting in Narathiwat apparently
misunderstood the meaning of “R&R”, by shooting himself in the head during a
drunken game of Russian Roulette.
On the evening of November 22, Pte Juthipon Singmanee, posted to the Chulabhorn Army Camp
in strife-torn Narathiwat Province, was home during his leave of duty, socializing with
four or five friends.
At an unnumbered house in Village 8 of Tambon Khao Roop-chang in Songkhla’s Muang
District, the friends formed a wong lao (drinking circle) as a way of bidding farewell to
Pte Juthipon, who was returning to active duty the next day.
One of the friends happened to have a partly loaded .38 revolver, which Pte Juthipon
thought would be fun to use in a game of Russian Roulette. Removing all of the bullets but
one, he put the pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger.
Unfortunately for the young serviceman, the chamber holding the bullet happened to be the
one set to discharge. With a deafening bang, the .38 slug ripped into his skull. He spun,
and fell face-up with a thud into the center of the drinking circle.
Pol Maj Jamlong Suwaluck of Songkhla’s Muang District Police, who questioned
Juthipon’s friends, said that the death was not a suicide relating to the stress of
having to serve in the Deep South.
“He was only doing it for fun,” the friends told him.]
2.-Woman zapped by her own security device
SURAT THANI: Sakhon Wich-aidit was fed up with thieves trying to
steal the mats of rubber stored outside her home, so she installed a security system
– she surrounded her property, located in a rubber plantation, with bare wire, then
plugged it into the mains power. But the only victim claimed by the system was K. Sakhon
herself.
At about 8:30 am on November 20, neighbors saw the 41-year-old run out of her home in
remote Tambon Changkhwa to meet a friend.
As she ran barefoot out of the house and across the wet, muddy yard, she lost her footing
and fell on the wire, which had been concealed in the trees and bushes surrounding her
home.
Neighbors watched in horror as the current surged through her body. She was rushed to
hospital, but died on the way.
At Kanchanadit Hospital, police noted deep burn wounds on her body, especially across the
palms of both hands, where the flesh had been seared off.
One neighbor and a relative of the victim, 50-year-old Napha Wichaidit, said K. Sakhon
lived in the house with her husband. The couple had five children, all students in Surat
Thani Town, who came home only at weekends and holidays.
She said nearly every house in the village had strung electric wiring around their
properties, concealing it in vegetation and turning the current on at night to ward off
thieves who regularly stole the raw rubber mats they left hanging in their yards.
The thieves, who are especially active when the price of rubber is high, had been running
amok in Tambon Changkhwa and neighboring tambons in Amphur Kanchanadit, K. Napha said.
“They also go after other valuables as well, anything else with resale value,”
she said. “They hit every house in the area, which is why almost everyone has set up
electric wiring to protect themselves.
“When we report the thefts to the police, they seldom catch the thieves. Sometimes
they say they have caught a suspect, but we never get our property back,” she added.
Many local residents first tried guard dogs, but without success. “Guard dogs
didn’t work because the thieves came and gave them ya beua maa (dog poison).
That’s when everyone started using live wires; we usually turn them off in the
morning and until now, none of the home-owners has received a shock,” she said.
Kanchanadit District Police Superintendent Pol Col Praphan Khaawthong said that using
electrified fencing to protect property was common in rural districts, where it was
especially popular for trapping tree-dwelling animals and for securing livestock in pens.
3.-Sole food
The father of an 8-year-old boy who eats nothing but dirty shoes and sandals is worried
about his son’s health and seeking donations for medical treatment to cure him.
After neighbors brought the existence of the shoe-eating boy to the attention of staff at
the TV program Mun Plak Dee Na, they went to Hao village in Chiang Mai province on
November 10 to investigate for themselves.
There, they met K. Kao (he declined to disclose his surname) and his son Tinoy.
K. Kao told them that his son had launched into strange diets at the age of two –
before shoes, he apparently used to enjoy eating paper.
“I’m anxious about his health but I can’t do anything because I don’t
have any money,” K. Kao said.
“I hope some kind person will help him.”
As he spoke, Tinoy helped himself to a shoe, shocking the TV crew, who immediately offered
him various snacks instead. But the boy continued munching on the shoe, oblivious to any
of their tasty treats.
The boy’s teacher, K. Ratchanee Yordsiri, said that Tinoy likes to eat his
friends’ flip-flops. “At first I didn’t believe it; I suspected a dog had
chewed on the rubber sandal, but when I saw Tinoy biting into it, I was speechless.”
Maliwan Boonma, a doctor from Amphur Mae Jam Hospital, said that Tinoy’s behavior is
caused by a disease known as Pica. Children suffering from this disease are compulsive
eaters of non-food items.
“I have seen many children with this problem eat soil, plastic, even matchsticks.
This chronic behavior may disappear in his teenage years, but his physical and mental
health may be affected. He is visibly pale and skinny, and he suffers from bloody stools.
He needs to improve his eating habits as quickly as possible.”
4.-Deep throat dentistry
BANGKOK: A 19-year-old student spent three agonizing days with a toothbrush lodged in
her stomach – after she accidentally swallowed it and nobody would believe her.
The student, whose name and address were not reported, felt an itch in her throat on the
evening of December 5. Rather than visit the hospital, she decided to use her
standard-sized Colgate-brand toothbrush to scratch away the irritation.
Unfortunately, she lost her grip and started choking as the toothbrush got caught in her
throat, blocking her air supply. Desperate for oxygen, she tilted her head back and
swallowed hard. It worked: the toothbrush slid down her esophagus and she was able to
breathe again. But now she had a different problem – a toothbrush in her stomach.
Frightened, she told her parents and anybody else who would listen, but nobody believed
her. After all, who had ever heard of a person swallowing a toothbrush? The poor
girl’s credibility sank further still when an abdominal X-ray taken at a local
hospital did not show the presence of any foreign bodies. She was sent home.
Not surprisingly, she started experiencing pain in her stomach and even in her left
shoulder. The pain was there whether she was sitting or standing, awake or asleep –
and it only got worse when she tried to eat, she said.
Seeing his daughter in agony, the girl’s father took her to Payathai 3 Hospital in
Bangkok on December 8. This time the X-ray revealed the presence of the toothbrush, the
bottom of which sitting at the entrance to the large intestine.
An emergency endoscopy was performed, surgeon Worawit Kowitwarangkul skillfully snaring
the toothbrush with a length of thread fitted to the endoscope’s head. He then pulled
the offending implement back up through the girl’s gullet and out of her mouth. She
was released soon afterward and said she didn’t experience any further pain.
Dr Worawit said that it was the first case of a swallowed toothbrush he or anyone at the
hospital had ever heard of.
“This is a topic that warrants further study,” he said. “Usually when we
remove foreign bodies from the stomach, they are smaller objects, such as coins and nails
and things of that sort.”
Dentist Suta Jearramaneesopon, Director of the Ministry of Public Health’s Dentistry
Department, said that under normal conditions there was little chance a toothbrush would
accidentally find its way deep into the digestive tract.
“Normally the bend in the throat will prevent a toothbrush from going down. The only
way is if the head is tilted right back, and even then the gag reflex will usually kick in
and prevent any foreign objects from going down,” she said.
She warned the public to consult a doctor if they experience throat discomfort. While not
recommending the practice of using a toothbrush to scratch one’s throat, she had a
few words of advice to those who insist on dong so.
“Try tying a small thread through the eye at the end of the toothbrush – this
way you can pull it back up if it accidentally slips down your throat,” she said.
Strange as the story is, it is not without precedent. In October, an Indian man had to
undergo emergency surgery to remove a 7-inch toothbrush from his stomach after he
accidentally swallowed it while “vigorously brushing his tongue”.
Unfortunately for him, the toothbrush was too large to remove by endoscopy.
5.-Gasoholic
MUKDAHARN: With prices at the pumps rising ever higher, some people tend to forget that
even at 25 baht/liter gasoline remains one of the cheapest liquids available on sale
anywhere – and it is still a good deal cheaper than even the lowest-priced beers.
Perhaps that is why 31-year-old farmer Sa-ngiam Janlong of Tambon Ban Khoke in Mukdaharn
has taken to drinking gasoline, rather than allowing it to be uselessly burned up in some
internal combustion engine.
On November 2, a TV crew from the Mun Plaek Dee (That’s Delightfully Strange) show
tracked down Sa-ngiam for an interview that appeared at 2 pm the following Saturday on
Thai TV Channel 9.
When they first contacted Sa-ngiam, the TV crew asked if they could film a segment about
his daily routine. Sa-ngiam said he was glad to oblige, asking them to go to a nearby
roadside gasoline vendor for a bottle of gasoline so he could demonstrate.
At the pump – a hand-pump perched atop a 55-gallon drum – the reporters learned
that the owner had stopped selling gasoline to Sa-ngiam after learning that the man had
been drinking it. Undeterred, Sa-ngiam simply took his business elsewhere, the owner
explained.
Bottle of gasoline in hand, the reporters returned to Sa-ngiam’s home, where he
quickly poured out a big tumbler of the volatile liquid, took a big whiff of the fumes and
prepared to drink up for the camera. But before he could, the emcee cried out
“Stop!”, saying he first wanted to know why the man enjoyed drinking gasoline so
much.
Sa-ngiam explained that he had been drinking gasoline for two years, gulping it down
whenever he felt the urge. His normal daily consumption is about half a liter, drunk in
two or three sessions, he said.
He said he drank gasoline because he like the strong taste. Sometimes he mixed the
gasoline with alcohol to get an extra kick, he told the reporters. When asked about the
health risks of the known carcinogen, Sa-ngiam admitted that he couldn’t give it up
now, even though he knew it might bad for his health.
However, he added, he had suffered no ill-effects or burning sensations in his throat or
guts from drinking gasoline.
To show that this was real gasoline, the emcee poured a bit out from the bottle and
dropped a match into it. Flames leaped up. Unimpressed, Sa-ngaim then took the shot glass
and, with the TV crew and emcee looking on in stunned amazement, downed its contents.
“Saep!” (delicious), he said.
Dr Somsak Amornwiwat of Samitiwech Hospital said that Sa-ngiam’s habit put him at
risk of a number of life-threatening conditions, including bone marrow cancer and
leukemia.
“If he doesn’t stop drinking right now he’ll be dead in five years,”
he warned.
One thing is for sure, if you go out drinking with K. Sa-ngiam, it would be best not to
smoke.
6.-Bottled up
PRACHUAB KHIRI KHAN: From this peninsular province comes a cautionary tale about the
perils of leaving bottles standing on the floor.
Nuy (not his real name) had just finished his ablutions when he slipped on the wet floor
of his bathroom and plonked down firmly on his backside.
This is the kind of embarrassment many of us suffer from time to time, but in K.
Nuy’s case there was an added indignity.
At precisely the spot where he landed was a bottle of (ironically) stomach medicine. It
did not break, but slid in its entirety into the poor fellow’s back passage.
Unable to extract the bottle, and in considerable pain (the bottle measured 23 centimeters
long by 7.5cm in diameter) he was taken by relatives to the main Prachuap Khiri Khan
Hospital.
An X-ray confirmed that he did indeed have a large bottle-shaped object lodged in his
large intestine, close to the main exit.
It required a surgical procedure under full anesthetic to extract the foreign object, but
K. Nuy is now well on the way to recovery.
Top
Till next month.
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