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From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok,
Pictures: Andrew Chant & BC Pictures
July 12 2009
- Nathan Clark (Bebo)
A fourteen-yr-old British boy died at Thai theme Water Park after his body was trapped in the park’s water system and finally spat out in the resort’s pump room.
Today ( Sunday) members of his family told of their horror as staff at the tourist attraction refused to listen to their pleas for help for because they did not believe the accident could have happened.
Fourteen year-old Nathan Clark Griffiths, from Douglas, Isle of Man, got trapped in the water park’s pumping system after losing his swimming goggles.
His goggles had dropped through a grill at the bottom of one of the pools at the Pattaya Park Beach Resort, 85 miles east of Bangkok.
And he told his elder brother, Rhys, 15, that he was going to look for them before lifting the grill and entering the hole below. That was the last time he was seen alive.
Pattaya Police check where Nathan disappeared
It took over half an hour late on Friday for the staff at the resort to react to the families pleas for help and when they did engineers opened a water gate in the resort’s pump room and Nathan’s lifeless body spilled out.
Nathan’s father Jim Clark, a tunnel engineer, from Hull, had dived in to try and save him, after Rhys raised the alarm, but he could find no trace of his son.
Jim furiously hit out at Thai cameramen after he tried to film his son’s body on the floor of the pump room, lashing at one with a spanner.
In a bitter twist astonishingly Thai police, rather than protect the family, ordered him to pay 12,000 baht (about £240) compensation.
Jim Clark discusses with police
Today Jim, who works for the international tunnel construction company Robbins in New Delhi, said: “ The guards did nothing not for 30 minutes. They would not believe what had happened. When I finally forced them to do something they went to the pump room, opened a hatch, and my son’s body came out.
“I was distraught with what had happened . When I saw the intrusive cameramen I lashed out.
“The park has offered compensation. It’s not even something I want to even think about at the moment. This is not about money. This is not the time to talk about blame.”
The Clark family had been on a day out at the resort. Jim Clark has a Thai wife, who he met in Britain, who is step-mother to his sons and they were taking a break in Thailand, before all relocating to India where Jim had been posted. The boys had recently left schools in Douglas, Isle of Man.
15-yr-old Rhys was so furious that he put his story up on a web blog about what happened when he tried to get help.
“The life guard said that we shouldn’t play jokes like this and dismissed us. My step-mum was begging them to check the pipes. They argued back saying it’s impossible as the grill was locked”.
Distraught stepmum Jintana tells cameramen how officials ignored her pleas
“After a full 30 minutes they agreed to check the pipes. While they were checking I went to the ticket booth to make an announcement as to whether anyone had seen him . I was coming down the stairs to the main pool when I heard my father shout ‘No!’ very loudly then my stepmother screaming .
“If anyone is to blame it should be me. I should have stopped my younger brother.”
The lifeguard who refused to initiate any action was later named as Khun Dumromsak, aged 40, who claimed he had worked at he resort for ten years and that the grill in question had always been locked so nobody could have entered.
Nathan’s death is the latest of a series of tragedies to have befallen families holidaying in the resort.
An 11-yr-old Danish boy died after being electrocuted because of loose wiring around a hotel’s swimming pools, and a British father and his two daughters were all gored by an elephant which went berserk in the local Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens.
Geoff Taylor, from St Helen’s, Lancashire, subsequently sued the resort for the death of his 20-yr-old daughter Andrea, and injuries to his 23-yr-old daughter Helen and himself.
Underwater in the pump room where Nathan's body emerged
Two years ago after a five year court battle he was awarded costs and just £15,000 by a Thai court.
The Thai judge told him that in Thailand the courts did not award the same compensation as in the west.
My prayers goes to the family of Nathan Clark . Rest in Peace.
The Thai police are a disgrace trying to charge the father of Nathan Clark for 12,000 Baht. He did what any person would do trying preserve some dignity of his son. I would have broken that cameraman’s neck.
The Thai police are joke. They should be protecting the family and not helping some scumbag cameramen. They probably split the money.
This is really a sad situtation made worse by the Thai Police and scumbag cameramen.
My heart goes out to the family.
Andrew, could we please get a clarification as to wether or not what you are calling the “Pattaya Water Park” is in fact the water park at the Pattaya Park Beach Resort in Jomtien?
Monger? SEA: Yes
Makes my blood go cold for this poor family. there are no words to describe the horror and distress and my sincere condolences. RIP young man. The young boy’s name should live forever on in educating people to beware of substandard Thailand!
This is interesting, no where in the Thai language press is the Father mentioned as being present. Having only read the story and seen the local Pattaya news it appears as if only the stepmother was present, so first upon hearing about the father on the BBC I thought that the details was inaccurate.
Unusually, a story like this wouldn’t break the Thai news at all as the owner wouldbe quick to silence the media. The media alone in running of stories would left out the name of the Park until a couple of days after at least as per the case of Suan Siam in Bangkok last year.
Bob you’re quite right. I often have problems with resort owners when a tourist has died on the premises.
And amazingly while a Prime Minister can sue for a million or a billion for libel, a tourist who loses his daughter can get only £15,000 for the death by negligence and then have to fight for years for it.
I actually attended the case of Geoff Taylor. He was told the owners of the resort did not have enough noney.
This was a bitter pill to swallow as each of the six luxury cars he had seen in the owners car park would have been worth three times that!
I dont’t want to be negative but its the system we have here.
Perhaps no reference to the father because he took a swing at the cameraman!
I cannot believe the way the pattaya websites omitted the fact the father was present only mentioning the step mum! . Also charging the father for lashing out at the cameraman- i am going to City Hall Tomorrow and making a complaint to Mayor Ittiphol. Both the Police and the Camerman should be charged . I used to take my kids to the park and havent taken them there now for 4 years because every kid i know after visiting gets ill.
Thankyou Andrew for your reporting.
I agree with James, That camera man is a scumbag Piece of shit.
He obviously has no respect for the family of the boy. I would be interested in knowing which media company he was working for.
The thai police are in the same situation as the camera
man is, on countless times they show no respect for foreigners
that wind up in troubling times. As a note I Find it rather disgusting of the number of foreign police volunteers that kiss up
to the Pattaya thai police.
The only mention of the father is that he is an offshore worker, a few months on and off, which gives the impression that he is not there, I didn’t know that Thai press is capable of such subtleties.
By the way, the story is now not only all over the Uk press but also on the main BBC News. Unfortunately the news item is very, very bland and raises no issues treating it all as just another accident so I guess it will make no difference.
While I recognise the disparities and the obvious corruption in the Thai system, the issue here is not about money, and the focus should not be about ‘who is compensating whom’. On a human level this is a desperately sad story about a family who has lost their son and brother in terribly tragic circumstances, a tragedy that could have been avoided were it not for the disgraceful negligence of the holiday resort involved.
I am writing from England, and have been reading this article on an English newspaper website. I am just incredulous. I am also appalled at the gross insensitivity of the Pattaya media for showing pictures of this poor boy in this state. I have every sympathy with his father for lashing out at the photographer involved. I’m certain that anybody in his position would do the same. But I am astonished that HE has to pay a fine. Unbelievable. It is obviously the shocking incompetence of the staff, and the shambolic ’safety’ measures that are to blame here. To attack the father like this is obviously a feeble attempt to deflect attention away from those who are truly responsible.
I would just like to offer my condolences to all of Nathan’s family and friends. I hope you will find great comfort in your memories of him.
RIP Nathan.
Jamie
Regarding the local press forgetting to mention the father…One of the two main local TV news channels is owned/run by an ENGLISH man. The other is run/owned by a Danish man,with apparently a very interesting past…..the point of this reply is, the people behind the press are just as bad as the Thais themselves,and it takes a tragedy of this magnitude,to one of there own! to bring it to the attention of every one…they should have been with the family not against them. i think you get my drift? i will leave you with this one final statement to dwell on. the Xmas before last,the owner of pattaya people, can you believe this ,did a Xmas message to the viewers,along the same lines of the Queens Xmas message to the Commonwealth…complete with his wife & sons…wearing the most dreadfully Dicky bows….please Andwrew can you throw some light on the mentioned …..and to the family of Nathen my sincere condolences…
Nigel. I am pretty much aware of who is running the English language media in Pattaya and their backgrounds. I know in some cases it is not pretty. Its also not pretty in other places. I see today the boss of Pattaya One is complaining that the bosses at Pattaya Daily News are stealing his police reports and or er stories.
http://www.pattayasecrets.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t67151.html
Perhaps the media wars have started!!
PS I edited your post a little.
John: I think you may have hit the nail on the head there twice!
The fact is that most Thais have no idea of what privacy is, the English-language media in Pattaya however, should have raise the standard but instead some became even worse than the Thai press, filling their slow news cycle with gore.
Having met a few thai roving reportes of Pattaya, they are not very educated, most hung around Motorcycle Taxistands or embedthemselves with the emergency crew (that’s another exposee in itself) I really can’t blame them, most that they seem to be capable of doing is reciting facts, numbers, very few would have an idea of what Journalism is all about.
With respect to the deceased and family, I’m not making light of the situation but,
From now on, I’m going to put a clause in my will for the estate to sue the living daylight out of the journalist, should I ever died in an embarassing or horrific manner and a bastard reporter or publication dare publish it to the public without consent from my families.
Bob. I hope I’m not around for your demise! But don’t die without my permission. Actually journalists have to be at the scene of disasters, scenes of grief etc, quite a lot. It depends how they handle it. The father here of course was totally in order and acted as any good father should.
The Thai newspapers never cease to horrify me though in terms of what pictures they will publish. Possibly the worst I have ever seen was when they published a picture of rape and murder victim Kirsty Jones.
Western photographers as a rule do not photograph dead bodies except to accent the degree of a national disaster i.e. the tsunami (and never close up) or as I have poimted elswhere unless its Elvis Presley. And then I guess they want to re-assure readers he has not been re-incarnated.
Bob, of course being Thai you know that if you sue you will get diddly squit!
This very incident almost happened to me back in 1990 when I was 16 years old. I swam down to the very same grate and found I could easily lift it… it most certainly was not locked back then either… I was tempted to swim down into the square room below the grate, given the suction at the point of the grate did not feel all that grate… fortunately for me, common sense prevailed and I left it alone… deciding that suction was probably much stronger where the pipe was.
My sincerest condolences to the Griffiths family.
I am a westerner with more than 20 years of swimming pool maintenance, construction and repair experience from South Florida in the states. I worked briefly for one Australian pool company on the resort island of Phuket until I was let go because I was in constant confrontation with management over safety and quality concerns over profit where many situations were concerned. That also included the behalf of the workers as well..
Some examples were replacing a light underwater with a cut submerged cord instead of an entire new cord above water level in a salt water pool of all things, where the conductivity is even greater than fresh water. Though these were 12 volt lights in this case, they still had 220V sources and any sort of short could have caused a potential electrocution with no consistent safety cutoffs in place.
The technology and safety standards here in most cases are non existent or more than 30 years behind and being exploited by many companies, mostly western owned and run I’m sorry to say, with virtually no oversight by the Thai government as is the case in the west.. Sad but true, and a person like myself who bucks the system just ends up stepped on and shoved aside in the gutter without a leg to stand on..
Regarding above post:
What bothered me most was that I was hired for my experience and as a consultant and yet when I pointed out the failings and deficiencies I was resoundingly hushed and confronted on every point.
Eventually it became clear that they had intended for my hire to demonstrate their commitment and my role was more to silence the customers concerns by towing the company line and bolster the companies credibility which I refused to do where quality and safety was concerned as that was direct reflection on me and my professionalism. Sorry to say but this is all too common a business practice in this environment given the lax regulation, oversight and ducking of liability and compensation in the legal system here as demonstrated by the example above..
It is pretty much a given that just about all farangs working here, including the exec class, are treated like third class citizens by their Thai employees. We might occasionally have a bit more money. But we have almost zero rights to fight our patch. That extra cash usually isn’t enough to pay for real justice. Then again, we expect far too much from people who aren’t really even prepared to pay for the skills of locals who are more experienced and better educated than themselves. Sad to say, but charity really does belong at home in the face of such laissez-faire/ mai pen rai attitudes. I have yet to find any enterprise here that was worthy of wasting my hard-earned cash on.
I knew the boy who died in this accident, and it is horrible making his dad pay for a camera? he was doing what any dad would to protect his son, and someone as sick to take pictures of nathan’s body shouldn’t be given anything!