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Thai masseuse urges ‘fairness’ after new details emerge in singer’s death

An autopsy carried out on Chayada Prao-hom shows the singer’s death was not due to health complications from massage

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Left: Thai singer Chayada Prao-hom, who died on Sunday. Right: An x-ray image posted by Chayada to social media. Photos: Facebook / Chayada Prao-hom

A Thai therapist who apparently performed “neck-cracking” massages on the singer Chayada Prao-hom has asked for fairness over the case after an autopsy revealed Chayada’s death was not linked to health complications from the procedure.

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Chayada, a singer of the northeastern Mo Lam style, died from septicaemia – a type of blood poisoning – at a hospital in northeast Thailand’s Udon Thani last Sunday.

The 20-year-old underwent three sessions at a massage parlour in Udon Thani in October to relieve neck pain and later claimed in a social media post that the treatment left her bedridden and caused numbness and weakness in her arms.

Last month, her condition worsened after a scan showed swelling in her brainstem and she spent days at a hospital’s intensive care unit before she died.

Provincial health chief Somchaichoti Piyawatvela said an autopsy found that Chayada’s death was due to a blood infection and a swollen spinal cord.

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Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin said that the massage carried out on the singer was unconnected to her condition as a magnetic resonance imaging scan ruled out cervical bone fractures.

Two foreign students undergoing training at a Thai traditional massage school in Bangkok. Photo: AFP
Two foreign students undergoing training at a Thai traditional massage school in Bangkok. Photo: AFP
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