A prisoner escaped from a hospital in Pattaya early on Saturday after undergoing surgery to treat a penis infection, police said.
Officials from the Pattaya Remand Prison alerted police that the man had fled Bang Lamung Hospital in the Na Klua area of the beach town in Chon Buri, said Pol Col Nawin Sinthurat, chief of the Bang Lamung police station, who was alerted about 2am.
People saw the inmate running towards a forested area behind the hospital. More than 100 police and prison staff were hunting for him, said Pol Col Nawin.
According to police, inmate Thanaphat Mayod, 37, had one year and 10 months left to serve for a theft conviction.
After suffering a severe infection from injections to enlarge his penis, he was admitted to Bang Lamung Hospital for surgery on Dec 6. He was recovering in a seventh-floor patient room that was being guarded by two prison officers.
At around 2am, Thanaphat used a steel cutter to break his fetters and left the room, taking an elevator to the ground floor to make his escape.
When police called his wife in for questioning, she reportedly admitted she had brought him the cutting tool on Friday.
The woman claimed her husband escaped because he missed his family.
Thanaphat’s escape is the second such incident involving a prisoner in recent weeks. Chaowalit Thongduang, alias Sia Paeng Nanod, escaped from Maharat Nakhon Si Thammarat Hospital in Nakhon Si Thammarat on Oct 22. Despite a massive manhunt and a shootout with police, he remains at large.