The only child to escape from a daycare after a former police officer massacred preschoolers while they napped was Paweenuch Supholwong, a 3-year-old wisp of a girl who fidgets with her pigtails as her mother recounts the remarkable tale of how the wisp of a girl survived Thailand’s worst mass killing.
The attack that broke the peace of the rural hamlet of Uthai Sawan claimed the lives of 36 individuals, including two dozen children. The attack robbed the modest farming village of a large portion of its youngest generation in the blink of an eye.
When the assailant burst through the front door and killed 22 of Paweenuch’s classmates who were lying around her, he apparently missed her because he believed she was already dead, according to her mother Panomplai Srithong. Paweenuch was sound asleep and covered by a blanket when the attack occurred.
Panomplai, who was tenderly cuddling her baby, added, “It’s to bring the spirit back into her body.” It appears as though the spirit has been summoned back to the body after having left.
The 6,500 residents of Uthai Sawan are dispersed across twelve villages and reside in dwellings dotted among the rice fields and sugar cane fields that many of them cultivate.
Uthai, which means “rising sun,” and Sawan, which means “heaven” or “happy,” in Sanskrit, were used to give the municipality in northeastern Thailand its name.
The public daycare facility, which is next to the government’s administrative buildings and across from a sugar cane field, served 92 preschoolers from the township. However, due to floods brought on by the periodic monsoon rains, a mechanical issue with the center’s school bus, and other considerations, few people were there when the shooter opened fire on Thursday.
According to Nanticha Panchom, the teacher who oversees the daycare, there are an additional 100 preschool-aged children in the municipality who either attend private daycare facilities or remain at home.
Nanticha, 43, was preparing the children’s lunch in the center’s kitchen when she heard the first gunshot from outside; according to the police, the assailant had just shot a man and a child in front of the structure. She rushed outside to seek assistance when she overheard someone else yell to lock the front door.
Looking across the road to the one-story building now covered with flowers and other memorials to the deceased, she added, “I never believed he would walk inside.”
She grimly pondered whether any kids would ever return to the daycare as well as what the deaths of the others would entail for the township’s 1,900 or so homes.
Nanticha remarked, “I can’t even begin to understand what this lost generation would mean to this community.
The shooter was identified by authorities as Panya Kamrap, 34, a former police sergeant who was discharged earlier this year due to a methamphetamine-related criminal offence. He killed people along the road after leaving the daycare before killing his wife, child, and himself at home, according to the authorities. He was scheduled to appear in court the following day to answer for the narcotics allegation, but the precise reason for his actions is still unknown.
Tawatchi Wichaiwong, like many locals, travelled from a nearby hamlet on Saturday with his wife, sister-in-law, and three young nephews to pay their respects at the memorial outside the daycare.
“We experienced that in every village. The 47-year-old sugar cane grower added, “I cried when I received the news. We all know each other and have kids that are around the same age.
According to Chuanpit Geawthong, a senior local administrator who was born and raised in Uthai Sawan, the incident was particularly shocking for a community where residents are used to quiet and tranquil daily lives.
“This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We didn’t lose anyone, not even during the Covid crisis, she remarked. Everyone is touched by this since our families are all connected, thus we all feel it.
The 52-year-old woman said she routinely dropped by to assist out and see the kids, who called her “grandma,” while she worked in the district office building next door to the daycare facility.
Chuanpit was using the outdoor restroom when she heard shots being fired. She raced outside to find a man suffering from a gunshot wound laying behind a table and rendered aid. He is healing in a hospital, but a district office employee was killed, she claimed.
She is having the most difficulty coping with the loss of the children.
If the victim wasn’t your child, grandchild, or family member, it was someone you know. “It’s very hard for someone here not to be affected by this,” she added. The Thai government is giving the families financial assistance to cover funeral fees and other obligations.
This amount, which for many families equates to several months’ wages, if not more, in one of the poorest provinces in the nation, is at least 310,000 baht ($8,300).
On the day of the incident, the government immediately quickly sent a group of trauma specialists from Bangkok who collaborated with local mental health specialists to assist the victims.
A small village like Uthai Sawan has a benefit in that its size offers it a sense of social solidarity that can be a source of strength in dealing with such a tragedy, according to team head Dutsadee Juengsiragulwit, a physician with the government’s department of mental health.
On the other hand, she asserted that because practically everyone is touched in some way and no one is “undamaged,” experts must act fast to help those in need.
When Panomplai Srithong and her husband learned that their daughter’s daycare had been assaulted and that no one had survived, they were at work at a Bangkok electronics factory.
They had relocated to the capital, leaving 3-year-old Paweenuch in the care of her grandmother, like many people from Uthai Sawan, in order to find employment and support their families back home.
After a brief period of terror, they discovered that their daughter had survived, and they as soon as they could drove back to Uthai Sawan. Breathing was challenging—I can’t even begin to explain it—but Panomplai stated that she was pleased when she learned that her child had survived. However, I also wanted to know if there had been any collateral damage or if she had any injuries.
She said from what her daughter has told her, she had been asleep under her blanket turned toward a wall and she doesn’t seem to have seen or heard the attack. Rescue workers carried her out of the building with her eyes covered so she didn’t see the grisly scene.
She did ask her grandmother about where her best friend was, and she told her that her friend “has passed.”
“That’s when she found out that her friend died,” Panomplai said. “This was the person who was sleeping next to her.”
Panomplai went to a temple service on Saturday for him and other victims after her adult relative was killed in front of the daycare. I’m fortunate that my child is fine, but I lost my cousin, so there’s good luck mixed in with the horrible luck, she remarked.
