A British man has died in a Thai massage parlor while he was being rubbed with oil by a masseuse.
The traveller, 70, started gasping for air while lying on the massage table during a session with masseuse Miss Oraya, 39, in Pattaya on Friday.
She suddenly noticed that the pensioner, who arrived at the shop on a rented Honda motorcycle, was struggling halfway through the mid-afternoon massage.
Oraya called for help and staff began performing CPR but the Briton had stopped breathing.
They were unable to revive him and covered his body with a towel.
Police arrived at the Lovely Massage shop in the Bang Lamung district at 4pm and cordoned off the scene.
The massage customer was pronounced dead before his body was moved to the hospital.
Oraya said: ‘This was the first time the man had visited us for a massage. Everything was going normally then I noticed he was sleeping.
‘Suddenly he started struggling to breathe. He was gasping and choking.
‘I called the other girls for help and we started pumping his heart.’
Police said that they arrived and began looking through the building for signs of foul play or a struggle. The elderly man also had no identity documents on him.
Lieutenant colonel Teetat Trunjan, the investigating inspector from Nong Prue Police Station, said: ‘Officers arrived and kept the unrelated people away from the scene of the incident. They checked that there were no signs of any abuse. There was no identity document found inside.’
‘The cause of the death is still unclear. The body must be sent for an autopsy, to summarise the true cause of death further.
‘In the mean time, we are contacting the relatives of the deceased.’
Pattaya, on the east coast of Thailand, is best known for its round-the-clock adult nightlife and has been dubbed a ‘Sin City’.
