BAND PLAYED GOOD-TIME MUSIC EVERY SUNDAY
Totsakan was a house band at the bar, and every Sunday they played the kind of good-time roots music that is popular, especially in rural areas where traditional beats are played on modern instruments.
The band’s members were among the first to spy a spark from a circuit breaker that may have set off the blaze that roared across the ceiling, which experts suspect was covered with highly combustible material.
People rushed for the few and narrow exits in what they said was total darkness.
The chaos was such that even after the blaze was brought under control by firefighters and the injured taken to hospitals, it was unclear who had survived and who had perished.
However, for the band’s leader and singer, Atipat Wijan – nickname “Ice” – a big blow came right away.
In an interview with Thai TV Channel 3 just hours after the flames were extinguished, he recalled how the band’s bass player called him to tell him that Nahatai Sajjalert, the lead female singer nicknamed “Breeze” – who was also his girlfriend – was undergoing CPR behind the still-smouldering building.
Ice said he tried helping the EMS team resuscitate her, but she could not be revived.
“She wasn’t burned at all. Her body was completely intact. She just looked like she was peacefully asleep,” he recalled.
Ice said it was originally believed that keyboardist Preutthipong – nickname “Kwang” – had been found and hospitalised, but that was a misunderstanding.
He never made it out of the bar. Nattapat Thamnita, or “Biw”, the band’s drummer, was evacuated in critical condition, but also did not survive.
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