Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay (left) and Sub Lt. Supatra Ngamyanglai
(right) discuss options with patient Supachai Komolthiti.
Pratchaya Kerdthong
Pattaya officials came to the rescue of a teenager
who has been hobbled by pain and infection since losing the lower part
of his left leg in a motorbike accident last year.
Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay and Sub Lt. Supatra
Ngamyanglai, director of the city’s 20,000 Beds medical-outreach
project, called on the Soi Thamsamakkee home of 15-year-old Supachai
Komolthiti July 2, finding the teen laid up in severe pain.
Supachai’s leg was amputated after a Dec. 29 accident
when he and two friends on a motorbike were hit by a pickup truck. The
youth was dragged 100 meters by the truck and with broken bones broke
protruding through the skin, doctors at Bangkok Hospital Pattaya said
the leg could not be saved.
Following surgery, Supachai was transferred to
Chonburi Hospital, then sent home to recover. But infection set in and,
months later, the condition had worsened to the point where he was
unable to attend school.
Doctors from Pattaya’s medical house call program,
which aims to add a virtual 20,000 beds to the city’s medical system,
immediately transferred the boy by ambulance to an orthopedic specialist
at Chonburi Hospital where he will stay for about a month.
He’ll then be sent home again with instructions on
how to fully recover, both physically and mentally, from the
life-changing accident.
