Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a speedboat carrying British tourists in Thailand ran aground and smashed violently into trees, prompting screams from those on board.
Ellie Neary, from Derbyshire, was on an island hopping trip between Koh Lipe and Koh Lanta in the south of Thailand when the driver lost control on January 3.
Footage shows the panicked holidaymakers clinging onto their seats and cowering as they braced for impact.
The vessel leapt from the water and skidded across land, slicing through branches and leaves in a mangrove forest.
Ellie Georgia said: ‘Our speedboat crashed at high speed onto land while travelling from Koh Lipe to Koh Lanta. The driver lost control and smashed into the trees.
‘It was the scariest thing that happened to me on the trip. It was lucky nobody was hurt.’
When the speedboat halted, the tourists were heard asking each other if they had sustained any injuries.
While the island-hoppers appeared traumatised, no one was seriously hurt.
The incident transpired the same week that a trio of young British women were among 11 wounded in Thailand when an entire trunk of a wormwood tree slammed onto the roof of a bus in Kanchanaburi.
A 19-year-old, from London, another 19-year-old, from Welwyn Garden City, and an 18-year-old, from Oxford, were onboard the 54-year-old vehicle when the tree fell.
Nail-biting footage captured by a car travelling behind the bus shows the tree slowly collapsing on to the roof of the bus.
It had been hacked down by an illegal logger using a chainsaw, according to local reports.
The driver of the blue bus skidded the vehicle across the road as the holidaymakers on board screamed in terror, coming within a few feet of plunging down a hillside.
When police arrived at the scene, they found 36 passengers inside, adding that 11, including the British women, were rushed to hospital for treatment.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Maneephat Pengklet, investigator at the Lat Ya Police Station, said cops were notified of the accident at 10am on Friday.
He said: ‘At the scene on Highway No. 3199, a blue Benz passenger bus was found.
‘It was headed to the Erawan Waterfall and a wormwood tree on the side of the road had fallen on it. The windshield was shattered.
‘Initial inspection found at least 30 foreign passengers. There were 10 injured people from shattered glass and broken branches.’
The injured individuals were dashed to the local Synphaet Hospital for treatment.
Most of the passengers suffered minor injuries and have already been discharged.
A Canadian tourist, Jaime Michelle Mitchell, 45, was taken to the ICU with a neck splint.
Land transport official Thawatchai Wiriyajit said will shoulder the patients’ hospital bills.
Thailand’s largely unregulated ‘Wild West’ tourism industry has become notorious for its lack of health and safety.
Unqualified boat operators often take risks – venturing into choppy seas only for their vessels to capsize – and many of the public transport vehicles are extremely old.
The worst accident in recent years was in November 2018 when a ferry sank in rough seas off the coast of Phuket killing dozens of Chinese tourists.
In August 2020, a ferry sank off the coast of Koh Samui leaving at least three dead.
And just last month, a South Korean holidaymaker died when a boat capsized near the island of Koh Phangan in Surat Thani province.
