Ambassador off critical list

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33452, 6 February 1974, Page 3

Ambassador off critical list

(.V.Z.P..1. stall Correspondent) BANGKOK, February 5. The Thai Prime Minister (Mr Sanya Dharmaskati) today visited the New Zealand /Ambassador (Mr Paul Edmonds), who is recovering in hospital after a near-fatal road accident two weeks ago.

Mr Edmonds, who was unconscious until Friday, has been taken off the critically ill list. His condition is now listed as serious. He appears to be able to recognise people, has spoken I a few words, and is responding to doctors’ directions. Mr Edmonds murmured “acute pain” when his sister, Mrs Therese Downham, of Auckland, who is at his bedside, asked him if he was in pain. Mr Sanya drove to Siriraj University Hospital, where the Ambassador is in the intensive care unit, after bidding farewell to the Australian Prime Minister (Mr Gough Whitlam) at Bangkok Airport. Mr Edmonds appeared to recognise the Thai Prime Minister as he walked up to the bed. “He seems to be much better — he has really been fighting to live,” Mr H. Free-man-Greene, counsellor at the New Zealand Embassy, told N.Z.P.A. TEAM OF SURGEONS Mr Edmonds is being cared for by a special committee of 14 top Thai surgeons and specialists, under Professor Vikit Viranuvatti, King Bhumibol’s own doctor, who is

chief of medicine at Siriraj University. A Thai neurosurgeon, Assistant Professor Roongtani Kladplee, operated on the ambassador. Bangkok radio and television stations broadcast urgent appeals for blood donors for Mr Edmonds, who has a rare AB Rh negative blood. Two women, an American and a Dutchwoman, heard the appeals and went to Siriraj Hospital, where New Zealand experts have been helping the Thais establish a blood bank. Mr Edmonds, who was sitting in the back seat of the Embassy car at the time of the accident, was cut around the face, and suffered a broken collarbone and fractured ribs. The Thai driver is still in hospital with a fractured skull. Mr Robin Andrew, a 27-year-old Third Secretary at the New Zealand Embassy, who was in the front seat, escaped with a broken little finger and two chips from the bone of his left ankle. He is back at work. FUNCTION CANCELLED Because of the Ambassador’s accident, the New Zealand Embassy has cancelled the New Zealand Day reception, to have been held tomorrow, and will make a contribution to the Siriraj Hospital. “The Thais have been tremendous. They have done everything they possibly can for the ambassador,” Mr Freeman-Greene said today.