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Three-year-old dies in Thailand after being left in school van
BANGKOK, Aug 16, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A three-year-old kindergartener died
after she was left behind in a hot school van in Thailand, police said
Thursday after arresting the driver.
The girl was discovered Wednesday afternoon after her mother went to pick
her up at the end of school in the southern province of Pattani and was told
the child was absent.
The mother and a teacher located the driver, who led them to the locked van
where they found the body.
“The girl’s body was pale, no wounds, with a little blood stain at her
nose,” Montri Kongwatmai, commander of the Sai Buri district police, told
AFP. “She must have thrashed around.”
The heat inside the stuffy van and a lack of air caused her death, Montri
said, citing the autopsy results.
The 23-year-old driver admitted to failing to check whether all the
children had gotten out of the vehicle in the morning, Montri said.
He was charged with negligence resulting in death.
Between 2012 and 2016 in Thailand, there were 13 cases of children
abandoned inside school buses or private cars, statistics show, part of a
worldwide phenomenon referred to as “Forgotten Baby Syndrome”. Six of the
cases were fatal.
The previous such death occurred in June when a five-year-old was left in a
school van in Khon Kaen province.
“The problem with child deaths in school vans… is that (it) keeps
repeating itself due to the negligence of the service provider,” Adisak
Plitponkarnpim, director of the Thailand’s National Institute of Child and
Family Development.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1511 hrs