One reported dead, at least two injured in road accidents

PHUKET: A Russian woman has been reported to have died in an accident in Thalang late last night and a five-vehicle crash on the bypass road yesterday afternoon caused damage to several cars and left an American man in hospital.

Pol Lt Sathawat Srirattanapong, duty officer of Phuket City Police, told the Gazette that the accident in the southbound lane of the bypass road, opposite Keehin center, occurred about 3:30 pm yesterday.

In that accident, a foreigner riding a motorbike collided with the back of a Mazda pickup carrying tents and people in its bed. A Ford sedan, slamming on its brakes to avoid the accident, was hit from behind by a Toyota SUV.

A 10-wheeled truck then smashed into the back of the Toyota, the impact crumpling its entire rear end and pushing the car off the road and into the drainage ditch in the center of the median strip.

From his bed at Bangkok Hospital Phuket, 26-year-old American Lee Starnes, who was riding the motorbike, said, “The real irony was that I was on my way to Tesco-Lotus to buy a new helmet at the time of the accident because someone had stolen mine the day before.

“I don’t know anything about the other cars or if it was related to my accident, but I don’t think it was,” he added.

Mr Starnes has already run up a bill of 30,000 baht in treatment costs for injuries comprising a broken collarbone and numerous bruises and cuts, including a head wound that required seven stitches to close, he said. He had also suffered a concussion.

Lt Sathawat said he planned to visit the American soon to investigate the cause of the crash.

In a separate incident, a local Thai-language newspaper has reported that a 25-year-old Russian woman died about 11 pm last night when the car she was riding in overturned at the “curve of death” on Thepkrasattri Rd in Baan Makprok, Mai Khao.

Another passenger in the car survived the crash and was rushed to hospital by volunteer rescue workers from the Kusoldharm Foundation, the report said.

The Gazette has yet to confirm the report.