Father Drowns Freeing Fishing Line in Thailand Reservoir
A 53-year-old man drowned in Nong Kho Reservoir in Chachoengsao Province after swimming out to free his son's tangled fishing line; he became exhausted while returning to shore.
At approximately 6:30 p.m. on September 8, rescue units in Sri Racha, Chachoengsao Province, received a report of a missing person in Nong Kho Reservoir in Nong Kham District. Rescue divers, police from Nong Kham Station, and emergency teams were dispatched to the scene.
When authorities arrived, they found 28-year-old Thanachon, the son, waiting with grief-stricken expression. His father, 53-year-old Wachirwit, who owned a machine shop in Ratchaburi, was missing in the water.
Thanachon explained that his father had come to help him decorate his new noodle shop in Sri Racha, which was set to open on September 14. After finishing work in the evening, they decided to go fishing together at Nong Kho Reservoir. While fishing, Thanachon cast his line and it became tangled in grass. When he couldn't free it, his father volunteered to swim out and untangle it, ignoring his son's pleas to simply cut the line and leave it. After successfully freeing the fishing line and swimming about 10 meters from shore, the father told his son he was too exhausted to continue. Thanachon threw an empty jerrycan to his father to hold onto and ran to get help. When he returned, only the jerrycan remained floating in the water.
Rescue divers searched the reservoir for approximately thirty minutes before finding Wachirwit's body in the grass near where he went under. His body was transported to Laem Chabang Hospital for autopsy.
