A 57-year-old Thai woman had to have her leg amputated after getting trapped underneath a moving walkway at Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport.
On Thursday morning, around 8:27 a.m. local time, Supannee Kittirattana was traveling to board a flight to the southern city of Nakhon Si Thammarat when she got her leg stuck in the moving walkway at the Bangkok airport’s Terminal 2.
Medics rushed to the scene and transferred her to a local hospital. She was later moved to another hospital for surgery, during which they had to amputate her leg at the knee.
The director of Don Mueang International Airport, Karant Thanakuljeerapat, assured all future travelers that the tragic incident is under investigation.
“We would like to assure all passengers using Don Mueang airport that we will investigate and check and improve our measures so that we provide safe and efficient services,” said Karant.
According to the airport director, the walkways have been in service since 1996 and undergo regular maintenance checks.
The state-owned company Airports of Thailand which operates all airports within the country released a statement about the incident, announcing that it will pay for all of Kittirattana’s medical expenses and that it will be temporarily shutting down all moving walkways within its airports in order to conduct safety checks on them.
The son of the woman who had her leg amputated, Krit Kittirattana, said that the family was “most concerned about [Supannee’s] mental state.”
“This crisis is very hard for our family,” said Krit. “We are still shocked and saddened every time we see the news or think of our mother’s condition, but we have to fight because our mother is fighting.”
Back in July 2019, another passenger, Dhanapat Koomsalud, reported a similar incident at Don Mueang, during which one of his shoes got sucked into the moving walkway.
“The shoe got sucked into the walkway right away,” the passenger said in a Facebook post. “I was shocked, and when I looked, I could see that the safety comb was broken, that was the reason my shoe got sucked in.”
“I want to convey my condolences to the victim,” said Koomsalud of Kittirattana. “And I hope there will be no more accidents like this.”
