BANGKOK - A five-year-old boy was saved from drowning after his mother committed suicide by jumping into a canal - telling the child to jump too, police said.
Bang Yi Rua police received reports that a boy was rescued from being drowned in Bang Yai canal.
A government employee, an environmental inspection officer working at Khlong Bang Yai, saw the incident and jumped into the canal to save them, but he could only help the boy.
The boy, later identified later as Phet Sriwasithikul, 5, told police that his mother took him to Nao Cham Nien bridge in the early hours of Thursday.
She told him to take off his shoes and picked him up and placed him on the ledge of the bridge, then they jumped into the canal together.
The dead woman was identified as Khemjira Sriwasithikul, 34.
Her sister, Natthapha, 47, told police that her sister had worked as a product presenter since she graduated from college.
Five years ago she became pregnant by a 60-year-old man, who is now suffering from paralysis. Her sister said the man gave her 500,000 baht to help take care of her unborn child.
However, taking care of the child alone, her sister soon became depressed and regularly took medicine prescribed by her doctor, her sister said.
But because the medication had side effects, her sister took it in only small doses, which were probably not enough because she began having hallucinations.
On the night before her suicide, Khemjira told her brother, who lives in the same building, that a man came by her room and told her to jump off the building.
Her brother and his wife stayed with Khemjira and her son that night to make sure that they were safe. However, they fell asleep and woke up only when police called to inform them about the suicide.
The boy was taken to Taksin hospital and was later discharged into the care of relatives.
The mother's body finally recovered on Friday morning.