A month after two tragic crashes, families mourn as bodies remain in river

It’s been a excruciating month of waiting for family members of two Thai exchange students and a Chinese couple whose vehicles plunged into the Kings River along a winding stretch of Highway 180 just west of Kings Canyon National Park.

“They’ve been crying so much because they want to see their loved ones, even though they are dead bodies,” said Siriruk Ruangutai, an interpreter at the Thai Consulate in Los Angeles, where family members of Thiwadee Saengsuriyarit, 24, and Bhakapon Chairatnathrongporn, 28, have been staying.

Chairatnathrongporn’s mother, Supin Chairatnathrongporn, and Saengsuriyarit’s sister, Thiwarat Saengsuriyarit, flew from Thailand to the United States in hopes of bringing the bodies home for burial and to perform traditional Buddhist burial rituals.

Their bodies are believed to be inside a crashed vehicle still pinned atop boulders in the Kings River. The bodies of the Chinese couple, Yinan Wang, 31, and Jie “Rebecca” Song, 30, are believed to remain inside another car that crashed in almost the same location less than two weeks after the accident involving the students. Both crashes remain under investigation.

“I wish this was a bad dream I could wake up from,” Thiwarat Saengsuriyarit said.

Rescue plans

The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office has been waiting for high and swift waters to recede before sending people down to the crash sites.

“Sheriff (Margaret) Mims has to make a decision that keeps the safety of her deputies as priority No. 1,” said Tony Botti, spokesman for the department. “She continues to ask the families for their patience, understanding and trust in our department.”

Botti said officials are hopeful the students’ bodies might be recovered later this week. The department has considered multiple options in retrieving them, including using a helicopter to hoist the car out of the river or hitching it to a tow truck to pull it out, he said. The department is still trying to determine how to safely get a deputy to the car to hook onto it.

Lifting the vehicle by helicopter could cause the crumpled car to break apart and tumble downstream, along with the bodies, Botti said. The tow truck option – using cables to move the car a short distance to a safer spot in order to retrieve the bodies inside – may be the best option.

“If we can’t get the car out, we’ll leave it down there,” he said. “The bodies are our top concern.”

Wang and Song were last seen Aug. 6 at the junction of Crystal Cave Road and the Generals Highway. Botti said the department doesn’t yet have an estimate for when their bodies will be recovered.

“We have not seen the bodies of the Chinese couple. We haven’t even seen their entire car,” he said. “We believe we’ve seen a large portion of their white car, but it is deeply submerged in the river and we can’t get close enough to inspect it. It’s unknown if they are stuck inside or have washed downstream. We have not received any reports of them being sighted, so the chances seem higher that they are still in the car.”

Scientist and teacher

Botti said Wang has lived in San Diego for the past year, and Song travels back and forth to San Diego to visit him. Both are Chinese nationals.

University of California, San Diego officials said Wang and Song’s family asked the university not to speak to the media about them. Botti said their family did not want to be interviewed.

Wang, a native of Hangzhou in eastern China, married Song in 2016, according to his Facebook page. He was a postdoctoral scholar in UC San Diego’s chemistry and biochemistry department since last year and worked in the university’s Godula Lab, according to university records. Wang was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, where he earned a doctorate degree in chemical engineering, said Yang Liu, an associate professor in environmental engineering at the university.

“He’s a great scientist,” Liu said. “He’s really one of the most dedicated.”

Liu supervised Wang at a University of Alberta lab where he was doing water filtration research.

“He’s very intelligent, he’s very creative, and a very thoughtful scientist,” Liu said. “That’s why I highly encouraged him after his graduation to find a faculty position in America right away, but he decided to go for more post-doc training, but wanted to be a professor eventually.”

According to a short biography about Wang on biomaterwang.com, he received a 2015 “Chinese Government Award for outstanding self-financed students abroad” and previously worked as a research assistant, visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow at universities in Canada and Japan before coming to UC San Diego. His last move was described with relief: “After spending more than 10 years in chilling cities/country, Yinan can finally embrace the warm climate again.”

Liu said Wang loved nature and was very hard-working and positive. Professor Ravin Narain, also a lab supervisor for Wang at the University of Alberta, said Wang published many high-impact research articles and that he “touched the hearts of so many of us and will be dearly missed.”

“He was a wonderful person to work with,” Narain said, “very committed in all the projects he worked on, and above all he had a very nice personality, always willing to help and train others in the lab.”

Narain said he only met Wang’s wife once, but he said she was also a very nice person and was working as an English teacher in China.

Compassionate, adventurous students

Thiwadee Saengsuriyarit and Bhakapon Chairatnathrongporn were exchange students at the University of South Florida. The friends were on a road trip in the Sierra Nevada when they crashed while driving July 26 near Convict Flat Campground.

Saengsuriyarit was working toward a master’s degree in global sustainability and had a bachelor’s degree in Southeast Asian studies. Chairatnathrongporn was working towards a master’s degree in industrial engineering after completing a bachelor’s degree in the same major. Both hoped to return home to Thailand after graduation to work and help their families.

Chairatnathrongporn called his mother the day before the fatal crash to thank her for supporting him so he could study in the United States. He planned to build her a home upon returning to Thailand.

Supin Chairatnathrongporn said her son was an adventurous, compassionate person who loved America’s national parks. “He liked nature. He wanted to go explore every single chance that he got.”

Family members say the two friends had been in Yosemite National Park the day before their accident. They were unsure where they were heading when they crashed, but thought their trip may have been near its end.

Thiwarat Saengsuriyarit described her youngest sister as the “sweetheart” of the family, a social young woman who was well-liked and had many friends.

Hatairat Chancherdphol, one of her friends and a fellow member of the Thai Student Association at the University of South Florida, describes Thiwadee Saengsuriyarit – who was known by many as “Min” – as “very easygoing, friendly and always caring for other people.”

Chancherdphol recalls her love of cooking and sharing food with friends – including ducks and squirrels near her apartment.

“Min was a very good friend to me and also to many people,” Chancherdphol said. “The fact that she went missing for more than two weeks is not believable and has put us all in a big shock. We are hoping to get some explanation on what could have caused this accident.”

This story was originally published August 30, 2017 at 11:40 AM with the headline "A month after two tragic crashes, families mourn as bodies remain in river."