Retired Briton Electrocuted to Death While Mowing His Lawn in Northeastern Thailand

 

KHON KAEN – A 76-year-old retiree from England was electrocuted while he was mowing the lawn in his garden. His wife discovered the body on Wednesday afternoon.

“We received a phone call from a woman named Saengdao Suwichon who told us in tears that she had found her foreign husband dead in the garden of their house,” deputy superintendent and inspector Pol Lt Col Gritided Supan of Chum Phae Provincial Police Station confirmed.

Mrs Saengdao, who is 41 years old, identified the victim to the police as Anthony Stratton, a 76-year-old Briton. The couple had been married over ten years.

Mrs Saengdao told the investigating officers that she left the house early in the morning, as usual, to sell groceries in front of the Chumphae Industrial and Community Education College. She returned at 17:00 and found her husband dead in the garden.

When police and rescue volunteers of the local Tzi Chae Gor Foundation arrived at the scene, the wife led them to the garden behind the two-storey home. The house is located at 160 Mu 14 Ban Non Samran in Khon Kaen’s Nong Phai subdistrict.

“We found Mr Stratton’s body in the middle of the garden lying with his face up on the lawn,” Pol Lt Col Gritided described the scene. “His face had an unusual shade of green.” A brief inspection of Mr Stratton’s body revealed a burn mark on his left thumb. Apart from a pair of white shorts, he did not wear any clothes or shoes, police said.

“Next to him was an orange lawn mower with an electricity cable leading to the house,” Pol Lt Col Gritided said. “The cable went all the way through the garden into the living room because that was where the closest electricity plug was.”

To reach the lawn mower in the garden, Mr Stratton had connected two extension cords. Police noted that the insulation at the connectors of the cables was damaged and poorly repaired with duct tape to not be exposed to the highly dangerous electrical wires inside.

Based on the evidence found on the scene, inspectors believe Mr Stratton was accidentally electrocuted while he was mowing the lawn. A medical examiner from Khon Kaen Hospital, who had arrived during the inspection, said that the burn marks on his thumb and the greenish complexion on his face concurred with injuries caused by an electric shock.

Mr Stratton’s wife told police that her husband was a hard-working man and also loved gardening. He often spent several hours in the garden to do some gardening work, she said.

Police requested rescue volunteers to bring Mr Stratton’s body to the pathology department at Khon Kaen Hospital.

“Since we did not find any injuries that might have come from a fight, we believe that Mr Stratton’s death was an accident,” Pol Lt Col Gritided told Thai media representatives. “However, we must wait for the autopsy report to confirm the cause of death officially.”

Source: Farang Deaths