Thailand Motorbike Mayhem Maims Renegade Soundwave Man

Lavender Pill Mob producer Gary Asquith chatted to Skrufff this week and revealed that he's still convalescing after suffering a nasty motorbike accident in Thailand three months ago.

The former Renegade Soundwave member came off his bike after a stray dog attacked him on a dirt track in Phuket just before Christmas, he revealed, leaving him with a broken collarbone requiring emergency surgery. Medically uninsured, he had to fork out £1,500 to a cowboy local doctor, who inserted a steel pin in his shoulder with disastrous results.

"The surgeon there never cut it to size so consequently it's sticking out the side of my shoulder by 3 or 4 cm," he said.

"When I got back to the hospital here in London two weeks ago, I was treated like a medical curiosity. The bone hasn't fixed yet and the doctors here told me it's still not even set," he added.

Despite Gary's continuing medical problems, he was probably lucky, certainly judging by a report published by Channel Asia News this week which claimed at least 595 foreign nationals died last year in Thailand, many from bike crashes.

"The tourist death toll amounts to more than two Bali bomb attacks every year just from recklessness," said Lonely Planet Thailand editor Steven Martin.

"Each country is different so even if you think you know how to ride a motorbike well, you might not be used to coconut trucks, stray dogs and livestock at each curve, not to mention the Asian style of driving," he warned.
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