Driver falls asleep at the wheel in Thailand, 27 pigs dead

A driver fell asleep at the wheel while driving a 10-wheel truck carrying pigs through Suphan Buri province in central Thailand yesterday. He drove into a canal and 27 of the pigs died.

Officers at Nang Buat Police Station were notified that a lorry carrying pigs had fallen into the canal on the Chainat – Suphan Buri Road in Khao Phra subdistrict in Derm Bang Nang Buat district. Police and rescue workers rushed to the scene.

In front of the Khao Phra Subdistrict Administrative Organisation, police found a 10-wheel truck overturned in the canal and more than 100 piled up pigs, many of them dead, and the rest screaming, reports KhaoSod.

Rescue workers and locals worked together for nearly one hour to lift all of the pigs that were still alive out of the overturned truck and out of the canal.

Then, police coordinated a crane to lift the dead pigs from the canal back into the truck before lifting the vehicle, which was only slightly damaged, back onto the road.

The 44 year old truck driver Thanapon Premthong said that he was hired to transport over 100 pigs from Nakhon Sawan province to Samut Prakan province. His son and sister joined him on the journey.

Thanapon said that as he went around a curve, he started to fall asleep and lost control of the car. Startled, he woke up and tried to get the vehicle under control but couldn’t and ended up in the adjoining canal.

The driver said that 27 pigs died in the accident but he, his son and his sister all came out of the incident completely unscathed.

The accident is reminiscent of an incident in November 2020 when hundreds of pigs were killed when a truck driver fell asleep while driving through Pathum Thani province. The incident was described as a “horror scene.”