A 7-year-old schoolgirl from Chon Buri, Thailand, was reportedly locked inside a school van after the driver forgot about her, and she was later found dead on 20 August, as reported by Thai PBS World.
The school teachers said that the driver was supposed to make sure that all of the students had alighted after the arrival of the school van at the school premises, according to Bangkok Post.
Thaiger reported that the driver had assumed that the van was empty, before parking the can at the school carpark from morning until about 4pm.
He later when to retrieve his van to send the students home, and that was when he discovered the schoolgirl’s body.
The authorities are alerted to the incident at about 5pm, and they found the schoolgirl lying on the floor behind the driver’s seat with her backpack nearby, as well as a cup of water.
The 7-year-old deceased was also found with cuts and bruises on her body, and she was pale and bleeding from her mouth.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the girl died from a heatstroke, and the authorities concluded that at the time of the incident, she had fallen asleep at the back of the school van after moving to the back of the vehicle to make way for other students, according to The Bangkok Post.
The school van driver and a teacher have since been charged for reckless actions resulting in death, and they have pleaded guilty.
Thailand’s minister of education, Treenuch Thienthong, has also rejected the driver and teacher’s “excuse” of leaving the girl in the van because they were “forgetful”, and a probe has been ordered to look into the incident, as reported by Thai PBS World.
Images source: Siam Rath via Thaiger and Thai PBS World