Princess Bajrakitiyabha was out running with her dogs in the Khao Yai national park in Pak Chong District on Wednesday when she had a heart attack.
The 44-year-old princess was first taken to Pak Chong Nana Hospital in the city of Nakhon Ratchasima where CPR was performed on her for several hours but to no avail. King Vajiralongkorn rushed to the hospital in a military helicopter to be by his firstborn child.
Journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall wrote on Twitter that when CPR failed, the only option was to move the princess to Bangkok for ECMO treatment as it could keep a person alive when their heart and lungs are not able to function.
According to eyewitnesses, a hospital helicopter took off in the early hours of Thursday morning flanked by two military helicopters. It is believed that Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha who was in Brussels for an EU-ASEAN Summit is also on his way back to Thailand after hearing the news of the princess’s critical condition.
Royal sources have anonymously confirmed that Princess Bajrakitiyabha is a critical condition and may not recover.
Princess Bajrakitiyabha is King Vajiralongkorn’s only child with his first wife Princess Soamsawali. She has a Ph.D. in Law from Cornell University in the US and is a Thai diplomat who had earlier worked with the Permanent Mission to the United Nations, in New York and has been a Thai ambassador to Austria. She is currently the Chief of Staff of the Royal Security Command of Thailand where she holds the rank of a General.
