Monk Killed on Pilgrimage: Mother Recounts Son's Purposeful Life

KHON KAEN — 4 July 2026, The mother of a Khon Kaen monk who died after being struck by a pickup truck allegedly driven by an 11-year-old boy in Mukdahan says her son had found purpose in the monkhood after surviving a serious accident years earlier. Phra Khamsing Chailert, 41, died while walking with a group of monks on a tudong, a Buddhist pilgrimage. His mother, Panja Chailert, 69, said the death of her youngest son has left the family struggling to cope. Speaking at her home in Ban Pong Daeng, in Khon Kaen’s Phu Wiang district, Panja said Phra Khamsing had been ordained during Buddhist Lent (Khao Phansa) in 2025. Before entering the monkhood, he had survived a serious accident that required medical treatment, but she said his body and some of his abilities had never fully returned to normal. She said her son later became close to Phra Yongyuth, a monk who had come to stay at the village temple. Phra Yongyuth asked for her permission for Khamsing to be ordained and promised to take care of him. Panja said she was worried about her son’s condition, but Khamsing also wanted to enter the monkhood, so she agreed. After his ordination, she said, Phra Khamsing often travelled with Phra Yongyuth on tudong trips to different places, and they had always returned safely. Before the latest trip, Phra Khamsing visited his mother at home and told her he would join another pilgrimage before returning to the village temple for Buddhist Lent. “I was worried, so I asked him, ‘Can’t you stay, my son?’” she said. “He answered, ‘I won’t die.’ After that, he didn’t say anything more and left with the group for Mukdahan.” Panja said she was shocked when she learned her son had been involved in a crash. She felt weak and overwhelmed, and asked her husband to call Phra Yongyuth, but there was no answer. She later learned that Phra Yongyuth had also been injured in the crash. A nephew who had travelled with the pilgrimage group later told the family he had tried to hold Phra Khamsing after the crash. He said the monk was covered in blood and gasped three times before falling silent at the scene. Panja said she believes her son may have died at the site of the crash. She also said that on the night after the accident, dogs at the temple howled throughout the night. Panja said she believes her son may have returned to the temple rather than to his parents’ home, after she had already wished for him to go peacefully to a better place.