LAMPANG: A manhunt is under way for a drug inmate who escaped from a hospital in Lampang on Tuesday night after he was sent there for treatment.
Seksan Khuenkaew, 39, alias Ae Khwai, fled from Hang Chat Hospital in Hang Chat district late on Tuesday night. He is serving a sentence in the Lampang Correctional Institute for Drug Addicts.
The wire tool used to hopen the handcuffs, found on the drug inmate's bed after his escape from Hang Chat Hospital in Lampang late on Tuesday night. (Photo by Aswin Wongnorkaew)
Seksan had been in the hospital’s mixed ward while receiving treatment for what he claimed was an acute stomachache, with prison wardens stationed outside the ward.
A police investigation found that Seksan used a shaped steel wire that had been hidden in his pillow to unlock the handcuffs securing him to his bed rail.
He then escaped through the back of the ward around midnight, made a hole in the hospital’s barbed wire fence and fled into nearby forest.
Police believed the escapee was hiding in Hang Chat district.
Prison wardens from the Lampang Correctional Institute for Drug Addicts were joined by police, local officials and rescue workers as the hunt for the escaped prisoner continued on Wednesday.
Pol Col Sompong Tangtua, chief of Hang Chat police, said police had been sent to the escapee’s home at Pa Khrai Nua village in Hang Chat district, about 6km away from the hospital, to inform his parents of his escape.
They were asked to persuade their son to surrender if he returned to the house.
The district police chief believed the escape had been planned in advance.
Seksan had been convicted on three previous drug charges before being sentenced to the correctional institute for having illicit drugs in his possession with intent to sell.
A police officer points the pillow that hid the steel wire tool that prison inmate Seksan Khuenkaew used to escape from Hang Chat Hospital in Lampang. (Photo by Aswin Wongnorkaew)