Mistaken for drunks, left to die: Thailand’s police have a deadly blind spot
A 21-year-old died because an assumption was made. The same assumption later left a stroke victim in a coma with 50-50 odds of survival
Warissara* survived the crash. It was the next four hours that killed her.
The 21-year-old had been riding home from her restaurant job on the night of February 20 last year, caught in heavy rain on a slick Bangkok road, when she came off her motorbike.
Emergency responders who arrived at the scene found only a few visible scratches – and detected the smell of alcohol. She had no identification on her. The call was made: send her to the police station, not the hospital.
She arrived at Phahonyothin station at around 3am and was left lying on the floor without medical care. Officers told her to rest while they checked her vehicle registration and tried to reach her family.
Police later said nothing about her condition suggested she was in immediate danger. Ninety minutes later, she had a seizure. A medical team was called. By 6am, Warissara was dead.
The autopsy laid bare what the rain-soaked roadside had hidden: fractured ribs, a ruptured lung, a ruptured liver.