Late Saturday night, two people drowned and two others were injured when an actor’s jet ski collided with a boat on the Chao Phraya River in Phra Pradaeng district. The accident occurred around 9 p.m. when the jet ski struck a small motorboat crossing the river near Wat Bang Krachao Nok.
The impact caused a woman passenger and the boat’s driver to fall overboard and go missing. Following the arrival of an echo sounder from Pathum Thani province, rescue teams discovered the bodies of Parichat Hoiman, a 44-year-old passenger, and Prayoon Uampathum, the 64-year-old driver, on the riverbed near the sunken boat’s engine.
Two passengers on the jet ski, Nanyaree Minhongdee, 17, and her 41-year-old mother Onlada Silanong, sustained minor injuries including bruises and pain. The jet ski driver, actor Shindanai Sae Lim, claimed he did not see the ferry because it had no lights and the vehicles were too close together to avoid the collision.
Shindanai was transporting his girlfriend and her mother from a riverside restaurant in Phra Pradaeng, and they were part of a group of 11 people on five jet skis heading back to their pier in Chom Thong district, Bangkok.
Mongkolsawat Woenkrathok, 48, who had hired the ferry for a trip from Bang Krachao Nok to Rama III bank, narrowly escaped the collision.
photo Divers on a rescue boat, left, search for victims of a collision in the Chao Phraya River in Phra Pradaeng district of Thailand’s Samut Prakan province on Saturday night. (Photo: Sutthiwit Chayutworakan)
