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The princess daughter of Thailand’s playboy king is on life support after suffering a heart attack while jogging with her dogs, it has been claimed.
Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44, was reportedly running with her dogs when she collapsed in Khao Yai National Park in central Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province last night.
The princess, who was being inducted as the successor to her father King Maha Vajiralongkorn, is said to have been airlifted from Pack Chong Nana Hospital to King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Bangkok in the early hours of this morning.
Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 44 (pictured in 2017), was reportedly jogging with her dogs when she collapsed in Khao Yai National Park in central Thailand’s Nakhon Ratchasima province last night.
Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun (center) is accompanied by Thai Queen Suthida (right) and their daughter Princess Bajrakitiyabha (left) in Bangkok in 2019
Doctors are reportedly keeping her alive with a life support machine and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has returned early from a trip abroad.
Thai royal expert Andrew MacGregor Marshall, an author and speaker, said the outlook was “very bleak” and that the monarchy, which punishes critics with jail terms, could descend into chaos.
MacGregor claimed the incident has “huge repercussions” for the Thai monarchy as Princess Bajrakitiyabha was being lined up as the successor to the controversial “crop top king” Vajiralongkorn.
The king has sparked controversy after it emerged that he spent much of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany with an entourage of “sex soldiers” assembled as a military unit in a four-star hotel.
The 70-year-old king has seven children from three previous marriages, all of which ended in divorce. Princess Bajrakitiyabha is the only one of King Vajiralongkorn who was born to his first wife, Princess Soamsawali.
King Vajiralongkorn has banished his first four male heirs from his homeland after accusing their mother, Sujarinee Vivacharawongse, of adultery in 1996.
MacGregor said: ‘Princess Bajrakitiyabha was initially taken to Pak Chong Nana Hospital where CPR was attempted for hours without success. King Vajiralongkorn rushed to the hospital in a military helicopter.
Royal sources say that the prognosis for the princess is very bleak and it is highly unlikely that she will ever recover. But she could potentially be kept alive artificially via ECMO for weeks or even months while the regimen decides what to do.
“These events have huge repercussions for the Thai monarchy because it was assumed that Bajrakitiyabha would be the next monarch or regent for her younger half-brother Dipangkorn who has autism and will not be able to rule alone.”
Residents living in the north of Bangkok reported hearing helicopters in the early hours of the morning. It is said that they were a helicopter carrying the wounded princess flanked by two military helicopters.
Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha (left) and Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana take part in a royal barge river procession in Bangkok, Thailand in 2019
The Thai palace has not commented on the alleged incident and docile local media outlets have censored reports about it.
Thailand’s monarchy is backed by the arch-royalist army, which has staged more than a dozen coups since the end of absolutism in 1932.
While the country has been rocked by decades of political turmoil, the constitution says the monarchy must be held “in a position of reverent worship.”
Vajiralongkorn acceded to the throne in 2016 after the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had reigned since 1946.
The new king was not formally crowned until May 2019 when he was carried on a golden platform in a six and a half hour procession through Bangkok.
During the ceremony, he was carried on a golden platform in a spectacular six and a half hour procession through Bangkok’s historic district.
Just days before the coronation, the King married his long-time consort and gave her the title Queen Suthida, in a surprise move.
Suthida Vajiralongkorn na Ayudhya, a former Thai Airways flight attendant, had to lie on the ground when the king gave her a gift during the marriage ceremony.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Vajiralongkorn is said to have spent much of his time with an entourage of “sex soldiers” at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the German resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Reports said the king had reserved the entire fourth floor, which includes a “pleasure room” and is decorated with “treasures and antiques” from Thailand.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn of Thailand (right) and Queen Suthida during their wedding ceremony in Bangkok. According to tradition, the King has semi-divine status and must sit higher than those around him.
Its ‘sex soldiers’ are said to assemble as a military unit called the SAS like Britain’s special forces, with the same motto, ‘who dares wins’.
A hotel worker said staff are prohibited from going up to the fourth floor where the king and his entourage have camped.
However, the king’s diplomatic immunity means there is little the German authorities can do about it.
Queen Suthida reportedly spends most of her time at the Waldegg Hotel in Engelberg, Switzerland, without her husband.
The king is protected from criticism in Thailand by one of the world’s toughest defamation laws, with prison terms of up to 15 years.