In the early twilight of a fateful Wednesday morning, the serenity of Ayutthaya’s Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya district was shattered by a harrowing episode that would leave tire tracks on the hearts of its people. As the dawn kissed the sky with its rosy hues, a van, embroiled in its steadfast journey from Nakhon Phanom to the buzzing metropolis of Bangkok, met with an unsparing fate, embracing a roadside tree in an unyielding clasp which claimed the life of a woman and shook the very core of 15 other souls.
The dire incident unfolded on the Rojana Road, leading towards Ayutthaya, as the vehicle wove its tale near an intersection, shadowed by a PTT petrol station in the quaint tambon Pratuchai, recounted Pol Maj Senee Phachob, the investigation chief with a solemnity reserved for such grave recounting at Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya police station. Time stood still around 5 a.m. as the calamity was laid bare to the authorities.
In a symphony of urgency, police and emergency services surged forth towards the tragic stage. Greeted by a melancholy scene, they discovered the passenger van, its identity marked by Bangkok licence plates, in a woeful embrace with a tree. Like fallen hopes, the van’s mangled front and partially caved-in roof spoke of the brute force, while belongings were scattered, painting a scene drenched in disarray and distress.
It was a tableau of despair as each passenger was found ensnared within the crushed confines of the van. The chorus of rescue tools slicing through metal underscored the sheer will to salvage lives. Alas, for the woman in the front seat, the tapestry of her story had reached its abrupt end. The other 15 passengers, though alive, bore the physical testament of the mishap’s severity. In a solemn procession, each was transported to the sanctuary of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Hospital.
The vestiges of the chaos bore silent witness to a van having danced off the path, pirouetting onto a footpath, grazing a traffic sign post before embracing its arboreal end. Left in the wake was a burst rear tyre, a silent scream, and a spray of personal effects flung from the vehicle, including sacks of rice – the very sustenance now lying as a reminder of the tragedy.
Mystery hung in the air as thick as the morning mist about the van’s conductor, the driver, whose fate or whereabouts remained an enigma unsolved by the officers.
Yet whispers from the void of social media – the Khaoayutthaya page, to be precise – rustled with the notion that, having survived the ordeal, the driver had vanished from the scene as if swallowed by the dawn itself.
The local denizens, startled from slumber by the cacophony of the crash, congregated outside, where the spectacle of the ill-fated van, its journey so cruelly culminated, lay before their eyes.
A survivor, shaken yet coherent, relayed to the vigilant officers a tale of return, a voyage embarked upon from Nakhon Phanom post the bliss of New Year festivities, with a collective yearning to resume the dance of life in Bangkok. Her recollections from the rear seat painted a picture of tranquility abruptly sundered. Ripped from the arms of slumber by a thunderous disruption, the reality of collision dawned mercilessly upon her.
Even as the echoes of the event fade into the annals of time, the diligent men and women in uniform delve deeper, seeking the truth behind the catastrophe, with the hopes of weaving closure into the narrative of those affected by this needful, early morning day.
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