NYE Nightclub Fire in Bangkok

[brocklanders]

No EMT's on site to help with the injuries and victims. Only guys with helmets chucking people into vans to get them out of there. Thailand has improved its infrastructure and hospitals tremendously but its EMT and ambulance system is quite possibly the worst in Asia. As a matter of fact, their are no public ambulances if a tragedy happens.

I was there the last time there was a fire at Nana Plaza and it looked like the keystone cops trying to deal with it.

This makes tourists scared when they see that buildings are not up to code and are firetraps.

Airport closure+deadly fire+bad world economy= Bad new for Thai tourism in 2009.

[doug]

I watched that video and I have to say the firemen, EMTs and police did their best to handle a chaotic mess. The video shows some brave and decent people helping others in need. Who can gripe about that?

On the other hand, it is also quite clear that the EMTs, firemen, and police are poorly trained and lack any experience in dealing with disasterous situations.

Thailand's EMT service is an all-volunteer force who go out every night to do good deeds. Yes, of course, we've all heard the stories of injured people getting chucked in the back of meat wagons filled with dead bodies and rival EMT teams hurtling recklessly through traffic to be the first to an accident scene so they can pick the pockets of the wounded.

There's probably some truth to those stories (there always is), but for the most part, EMTs are decent people who do a thankless, dirty job. I remember seeing a news report on Thai TV once about an EMT team that had stopped on the side of the road to load some motorcycle accident victim onto their truck. While they were doing that, a drunk driver in an SUV plowed into the back of the truck, killing four EMTs.

Which, of course, gives proof to the fact that most EMTs are clearly untrained amatuers. They don't take even the most rudimentary safety precautions at an accident scene (like road flares or guys wearing reflective vests and waving orange flags to slow people down), and they quite often do more harm than good by roughly handling and transporting their charges.

Some of that could be seen in that video. While some EMTs used body boards with neck restraints to move victims, other rescue workers just picked people up, flung them over their shoulders and ran around with them in a panic. Racing back and forth from ambulance to ambulance looking for some place to dump the victim off is not exactly "helping" a burn/smoke victim.

At the very least, a rally point should have been established where victims could be dropped off, sorted by priority, and stabilized before transport. Another thing I noticed in that video was that the police did ZERO to control the crowd. People (including the cameraman) were wandering around all over the place, creating more confusion and chaos. I didn't see anybody trying to rope the scene off, move the crowd back, or separate victims/rescues from gawkers/looters.

In fact, that was the most shocking thing about that video for me. I kept wondering when someone was going to come up to the cameraman and say, "excuse me sir, but you need to step back behind that line there. you're in the way of rescue and fire personel".

That never happened and that just goes to show that while the Thai emergency services are filled with brave, decent people. Those people are not given enough training to provide them with the necessary experience to handle situations like that in a calm, organized manner.

The hospitals in Thailand are generally quite good. It's GETTING TO the hospital that's the problem. Just one look at the logo (a man carrying an unconscious woman in his arms) for Thailand's EMT services is enough to show the depth of their inexperience. I'm sure they intend that logo to look "heroic", but I look at it and my first thought is "back injury?? god I hope not!!"

I thought the same thing while watching that video and seeing two EMTs run up, chuck a prone victim onto a body board without even checking her vital signs or injuries, and shouting "Jai Yen, Jai Yen" at her when she cried out in pain.

They clearly mean well, and I'm sure they're good guys trying to do their best. But it's also clear that they have absolutely no clue what they're doing.

So the lesson from that video is that in Thailand, if you can get to the hospital, you should be OK, but only if you can survive the trip!

[BAM]

I have a pyrotechnic license and use to be part of a team that did professional fireworks shows. We always took great care in handling everything€¦ safety was #1. There was no second chance€¦ you fuck up with this stuff you pay a high price! The display shells are bombs and the size of a coconut and fired from a 6 inch mortar pipe in the ground..

Most people have no idea how dangerous even a simple sparkler is... did you know a hand held sparkler can reach an operating temperature of over 2000 degrees centigrade.. That€™s 20 times the temperature of boiling water. That€™ll light just about any combustible material. Touch a sparkler to a glass bottle... it will melt the glass!

When you watch the video you see what appears to be a relativity newly constructed building fully engulfed in flames. That fire spread way too quickly because of no fire codes€¦ and the use of flammable construction materials. This would be a 3 alarm fire in the west with dozens of fire crews on scene but in the video I don€™t even see one fire hose trying to put out that fire€¦ oh I forgot€¦.. €œThis is Thailand€

[raybone]

something like this happened in Rhode Island, USA several years ago.  band using pyrotechnics display inside a building.  killed 100 people.
i wasn't there that night but i would have left and called the local FD.  i've had training in firefighting and there are some conditions i check out:  too many people and too fews exits.  i'm outa there.!

[pacman]

....and Thailand is particularly cursed by the "loss of face" mentality that renders all emergency services, etc unworkable.

This over-rides commonsense decisions by people on the ground to issue orders when it is often more than their job is worth.

Pre-conditioned by a lifetime of not speaking out of turn as it is unforgiveable to allow anyone senior to yourself to lose face, emergency workers wait to be told what to do.

And as officials rise in seniority, so the less work they expect to do, thus entrenching this spiral of top-down neglect, middlemen waiting for instructions that never come.

So eventually, even the good guys who want to change the system realise that nothing will ever happen & think" "fuck it, I've a family to feed, may as well get into the bribe business along with everyone else".

So the people who should enforce fire safety standards are only interested in the envelope of cash, the team that arrives at the fire can't think for themselves, if no-one tells them what to do, then better to let people die & keep your job, the whole system is fucked & beyond redemption.

If you think that a loss of face mentality isn't dangerous to human life, remember the Air Garuda flight that crashed landed in Surabayu - the black box flight recorder has the co-pilot telling the captain to go around 40 times, but the captain would not take orders from a lower ranking officer.

A flight captain friend of mine assures me this is standard operating procedure for any Asian airline using Asian pilots.

[manarak]

a group of muslims chanting with many people crying

?
is there some footage / photos of this?

[aperry]

I felt it was in appropriate to take snaps of those particular reactions.
There was around 15 Muslims situated under a canopy on the edge of the car park conducting a ceremony whilst a gathering of women wept.

[manarak]

oh - a ceremony. that's different.

I thought it could hav some significance because of the club's inside decoration:

[Dieter]

:up The owner are missed.....
The ploice search him.... cause he let people under 20 in....

TiT

Dieter

[pampamsam]

I would wonder if the club's owner is Thai, or worse, Farang...

[mardhi]

he is apparently Indian Thai and apparently owns Bed supperclub as well.

Cheers
Mardhi

[logen]

On the subject of EMT teams...they are volunteers and do the best job they know how to. They are poorly trained, which is something the hospitals they act for should do something about, but most have the best intentions to help people.

The hospitals pay them to take casualties to them, as they get paid for treating them. I know some of the EMTs are funded by private individuals who have a contract with the hospital and get money for each person they take there.

Several weeks ago their was a shootout at a gas station in Bangkok between two rival EMT teams working for different employers. At least one was shot - made the news here. Apparently they had agreed turf boundaries but one group had 'rescued' someone from the other groups turf - so they had a gun fight in a public place.

They were in their EMT pickups at the time - good to know they carry guns as well as a few band aids.

I've seen ambulances stuck in traffic with the sirens going and no one has even attempted to get out of the way. A couple of cars even pulled out in front of the ambulance.

[allstar88]

i love thailand and the thais but if something goes wrong your f**ked   things may change for a while with safety then it will be back to nomrmal . i remember the fire in a hotel in pattaya 10 years ago where people died because they could not escape because they had chained the fire doors shut to stop people running away without paying their bill,but this practice still goes on!!

[marshal]

Lets get this in perspective guys; Thai rescue workers are not EMT'S - all right! You are referring to them as EMT'S, they are unqualified. They have very limited first aid training ,let alone Medical tech skills. Although i'm British it would be nice to see them trained to at least EMT-B(emt-basic) standards(usa). They are not paid so shit like, shoot outs happen TIT. This shit escapes me, although the guys/girls attending scenes might give up there free time for some financial reward, they are at best incompetent. Maybe a service of emt -b's might never work in thailand, but it would be fucking handy!Nurses in thailand take there job seriously, so why can't a system be put in place for an american type syllubus for study and a uniformed ambulance/rescue service that is payed. Again -TIT.
It is a fucking joke on the whole, because thailand is not really a third world country, maybe not 1st world but definately not 3rd!

It all comes down to Baht at the end of the day, Thailand has some of the best surgeons in the world, and some really good MD's but..................................
They are playing to the money -medical tourism etc.

[f0xxee]

Hi Gents,

I am with RR on this.... As a worker in Oil and Gas for 25 years there is no way I can sit comfortably in any confined area unless I know where the fire exits are. If there are no fire exits I dont go in. Not only through choice but because I am as paranoid about fire as Asians are blase. (The number of times I have seen wait staff empty smouldering ashtrays into bins I am surprised there are not more fires than there are. Better luck than management.)

Even drunk it takes only a minute to look at any room for the green (ISO) exit signs. Get in the habit.