Yossavadee Leksiri sees no light at the end of the tunnel after a drug trafficker involved in a hot police pursuit crashed his car into her pickup truck, sending her finances into a downward spiral.
On July 11, the fried squid seller was driving her three-year-old granddaughter in her pickup truck in Rayong when a car driven by a drug trafficker appeared and rammed into her vehicle.
Both she and her granddaughter were injured. The girl suffered a broken arm while Ms Yossavadee suffered leg injuries, and has since been limping under the weight of a cast.
Due to her injuries, she was left unable to sell the fried squid. She thought her life was taking a turn for the better after she invented a recipe for the fried squid, which sold well.
But that was before the accident.
She and her granddaughter have been in an out of the hospital since. She has delved into her own savings to pay for hospital bills and the installments on the pickup truck, for which her 23-year-old daughter made a 70,000-baht down payment and took out a loan.
Her savings quickly dried up and she was forced to sell everything in her house, down to the pots and pans she used for cooking the squid, to make ends meet.
The vehicle was impounded by the finance company after she fell behind on payments for three months. At the same time, she has to care for her jobless son who suffers from frequent seizures.
The pickup truck, which she intended to use to deliver squid to customers, was badly damaged. She is legally obligated to pay the installments of 10,800 baht a month for the car's full 800,000-baht price tag, even when the vehicle was in the shop undergoing major repairs. The truck was only a month old, and was still carrying the red number plate of a brand new vehicle at the time of the crash.
The insurance company agreed to absorb 70% of the repair costs, but Ms Yossavadee said she had no idea where she would find the money to cover the rest.
Around that time, the finance company notified her that it had impounded her car because she was late on the installments.
Ms Yossavadee said she counted her blessings when a group of netizens on a website helped raise funds to settle her overdue installments. The owner of the auto shop also waived some of the repair expenses for her.
However, her medical bills and other debts continued piling up. Desperate, Ms Yossavadee decided to go to extreme measures. She took to her Facebook, offering to sell her kidney and an eye to raise money to settle the debts, hoping to get a new lease on life.
But after thinking twice about that, she went back to what caused her grievances in the first place and demanded justice.
On Nov 8, she took a trip to the Royal Thai Police office in Bangkok and asked for one million baht in compensation for the damaged vehicle and the medical expenses for her granddaughter.
"It's so disheartening that no government agency has given any remedial assistance to our family. I have been running ragged on my own in search of help," she said.
Her family has been at their lowest ebb. While her daughter is in the credit bureau's blacklist over the late installments, it's her granddaughter who she is most concerned about.
"She's developed this phobia seeing school uniforms," Ms Yossavadee said. "She was wearing one when the accident happened. She always cries when she comes across a uniform. She was shocked she found herself in her blood-soaked school uniform," she said.
The extremely tense and chaotic scene of accident has also stayed in her mind.
"Just picture it. The road is full of policemen wielding guns and shouting," she said, describing a scene of two people in serious pain having to witness the events through the windows of their mangled vehicle.
Meanwhile, Pol Lt Col Weerawut Meelai, deputy chief of investigation of Rayong police, said the provincial justice office has provided 30,000 baht of assistance to the family, plus 20,000 baht in "humanitarian" funds from the police.
However, Ms Yossavadee later returned the funds the police gave to her, saying she had been advised by the Rights and Liberties Protection Department to forfeit the money. No reason was given.
Pol Lt Col Weerawut explained the police also suggested Ms Yossavadee file a legal charge jointly with the police to claim damages from the drug trafficker who had confessed to the crime in court on Nov 5. He said Ms Yossavadee has not responded to the suggestion.
The deputy chief of investigation insisted the police could not afford to meet her demand for one million baht in compensation as no law existed to support it.
He added the police were not at fault for the accident and the police car was at least 700 metres behind the trafficker's car when the latter ploughed into Ms Yossavadee's vehicle.
Ms Yossavadee has the right to file for damages directly with the drug trafficking suspect.
"Our lives have collapsed right before our eyes. Surely, we'll never get anything from the drug trafficker," she said.