BANGKOK — 13 July 2026, The boyfriend of a woman critically injured in the deadly Na Ladprao beer hall fire has described the moment she escaped through the flames and tearfully asked whether she was still beautiful.
“I can’t take it anymore. I’m in so much pain. Am I still beautiful?”
31-year-old Tatsanai told her boyfriend, Phitsanu Nim-mian, as she waited for emergency assistance outside the burning venue.
Phitsanu, also 31, spoke to reporters on Monday after accompanying her family to Phahon Yothin Police Station to file an official report.
He said Tatsanai had arranged to meet friends from the clinic where she worked for drinks at the venue on Sunday night. She invited him to join them, but he chose to stay home and care for her two children.
He drove her to the venue at around 21:00 and planned to collect her later.
On his way home, one of his car tyres burst near Lat Phrao intersection, forcing him to call a mechanic. When he eventually returned home, one of the children asked where their mother was.
“I told them, ‘Dad will go and bring Mum home soon,’”
Phitsanu later received a phone call asking whether he was Tatsanai’s boyfriend. The caller initially said her phone had been lost and asked him to come to the scene.
He first assumed she was drunk and unable to return home. The caller then told him she had been severely burned.
Phitsanu rushed back to the venue, where he found flames and thick black smoke engulfing the area. Tatsanai had managed to run out of the building while her hair and head were on fire. Bystanders used a cloth to extinguish the flames before she lay outside awaiting rescue workers.
He said Tatsanai had visited the venue before and knew where to escape. However, the exit was narrow, forcing her to run through the flames.
“I felt so sorry for her,”
Phitsanu said through tears.
“She told me, ‘I can’t take it anymore. I’m in so much pain. Am I still beautiful?’
“I told her, ‘It’s all right. Focus on getting treatment first. No matter what happens to you, I accept everything. Just come home and be with the children. It doesn’t matter if anything was lost. I only want you to be safe.’”
Rescue workers then transported her to hospital.
Phitsanu said entertainment venues should have more emergency exits and clearly visible evacuation signs. Tatsanai had told him that both the entrance and exit at the venue were narrow.
He also addressed reports that an emergency exit may have been locked to prevent customers from leaving without paying.
“If that is true, it is completely unacceptable,” he said. “Money should never be considered more important than people’s lives. If something like this happens again, how many more people will die, and who will take responsibility?”
Phitsanu said the family had yet to be contacted by an official coordinator offering information or assistance.
Tatsanai was not covered by the Social Security scheme and was receiving treatment under emergency medical provisions, which cover the first 72 hours. Her family was worried about what would happen if she remained in critical condition after that period and had to be transferred to a hospital covered by her healthcare entitlement.
Doctors said Tatsanai remained in critical condition with burns to her arms, legs, face and back after running through the flames. Her hair was also burned, and doctors sought permission to shave her head and clean her wounds.
Hospital visits have been suspended because of the risk of infection.
Her two children continued asking where their mother was, Phitsanu said.
“I can only tell them, ‘Mum hasn’t finished work yet. Dad will go and bring her home soon.’”
Phitsanu said he met Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt on Sunday night to request assistance.
He said he was advised to register at Phahon Yothin Police Station and was assured that government agencies would provide support and would not abandon those affected.
Phitsanu also showed reporters the final messages he exchanged with Tatsanai before the fire, in which they discussed how many people were inside the venue.
Tatsanai’s father, 61-year-old Thuan Manpraphan, said his daughter was being treated in the intensive care unit at Paolo Hospital Chokchai 4.
Doctors told the family that her condition remained serious. Although she had begun regaining consciousness, Thuan said she had suffered burns across most of her body, except her face.
He said his daughter was not covered by Social Security and only held universal healthcare coverage under the gold card scheme. The hospital had informed the family that she would eventually have to be transferred, but they did not yet know which hospital would receive her.
Thuan said the family had little money and lived from day to day, leaving him deeply concerned about the cost of her treatment.
Tatsanai has two children, but the family had not yet told them what had happened.
“They keep asking for their mother, and I don’t know what to tell them,”
Thuan said he did not know how often his daughter visited the venue because she lived and worked separately in Bangkok while he lived in Lat Krabang.
He understood that she had arranged to meet colleagues from the cosmetic clinic where she worked and believed the gathering may have been a workplace party.
Thuan learned about the fire from Phitsanu. He was told that his daughter had been carried outside and left lying in front of the venue before rescue workers arrived and transported her to hospital.
He said he believed negligence by the venue contributed to the tragedy and called on authorities to prosecute anyone found responsible.
The family, he added, did not have the financial resources to bear the medical expenses resulting from the fire.