THE MAYOR of Udon Thani province launched an investigation today (Nov. 3) after unidentified officials faulted two young men for having rescued a drowning couple without first calling the authorities, Sanook.com said.
The two young men Mr. Rattakarn, 24, and Mr. Thuwanon, 24, said in a Facebook post that at around midnight last night they pulled up a couple drowning in the lake at Nong Prajak Park and brought them safely ashore.
However just then officials from an agency they did not recognise showed up and scolded them for swimming in the lake without permission and told them if there was an emergency they must not arbitrarily take action and had to only call the responsible agency.
This saddened the two young men with one of them saying this in the post:
“Today at around midnight a young woman jumped into Nong Prajak lake, then her boyfriend jumped in to help her. We were sitting nearby and as the two of them were drowning helped save them in time (this photo was taken after we rescued them).
“The point is some sort of officials rode up in a car to check. I told them some people had jumped into the lake but officials said we had erred in arbitrarily going into the water and had to inform officials and cannot go into the water as we did (have to mention we are not acquainted with this couple).
“However we didn’t go into the water, we used our hands to pull them ashore but then we were scolded for arbitrarily taking action and not calling first. In fact a person can drown in just 30 seconds – we used our hands to pull them up, they were about to drown, did we do something wrong?”
At 10.30 a.m. today Udon Thani Mayor Mr. Thanadon Puttarak said he heard about what happened from the media and checked with the Office of Public Disaster Prevention, the Fire Brigade and Mueang Udon Thani police station but they said they had not been notified.
So far he has not been able to identify the officials who criticised the Good Samaritans but an investigation continues.
He added that everyone must use common sense and if it were him he too would have helped. The couple was taken to the hospital for an examination but as they were not hurt everyone had parted ways.
CAPTION:
This picture was taken soon after the two young men pulled the drowning couple ashore. Photo: Facebook
