Unbearable scenes of a female traveler stumbling at Bangkok airport…and an electric walkway that devours her leg
Shocking videos circulated of a tourist whose leg got stuck in a moving corridor at Bangkok airport. Paramedics had to amputate the leg to save the woman.
The 57-year-old Thai passenger was scheduled to board a flight from Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport to the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat on Thursday morning at the airport’s Terminal 2. But in a freak accident, she tripped over her pink bag before her left leg was dragged to the machine at the end of the actuator.
Terrified bystanders scrambled to turn off the emergency switch, as the machine continued to shred the limb’s muscles, tendons and bones. Eventually, a medical team there had to amputate her left leg above the knee, according to airport officials. She was then taken to Bhumibol Adulyadej Hospital in the capital for emergency treatment.
The medical team at the hospital said she was initially sent to Karoon, where she was told they could not reattach her leg, but the woman asked to be transferred to another hospital to assess the possibility.
The airport authorities ordered an investigation to determine the cause of the accident. A suitcase lying nearby was missing two wheels, and the yellow comb-like panels were seen cut off from where they would normally cover the edge of the belt where the moving walkway ends.
Meanwhile, the automatic walkway was closed to traffic while an engineering team carried out inspections and security checks. “The director of Don Mueang Airport and its management visited the patient to follow up on the treatment,” Don Mueang Airport said in a statement. “Don Mueang Airport is deeply saddened by the accident and is ready to take full responsibility as well as take care of medical expenses and compensation.”
The airport said flights were not delayed because of the incident.
Don Mueang International Airport (DMK) serving Bangkok opened in 1914 but was replaced by the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport (BKK) on the outskirts of the city in 2006.
The airport manager said that the runway was manufactured by the Japanese company Hitachi and installed in 1996, adding that there is a plan to request a budget to change a new model in 2025.
In 2019, a passenger’s shoe was damaged after it got stuck in the airport’s moving walkway in Terminal 1. The airport issued a statement afterward saying that the faulty walkway was repaired and reopened within about an hour.
