Editorial: Brave dad has saved many more

Richard "Chuck" Carter was my flatmate at Victoria University 30 years ago. He was a wild boy from Carterton, and also one of the University's top accounting students - highly intelligent.

I'd caught up with Richard intermittently in the years since - watched his unorthodox but successful career moves, seen him marry his long-time Hawke's Bay-raised and educated partner, Anna, and then become a family man. It was that family which brought him back to my attention this year in the worst possible way.

Richard is the father of Sarah Carter, the young New Zealand tourist who died mysteriously in Thailand in February after falling sick with two of her Kiwi friends.

From the time the incident became headline news, he has shouldered the burden of family spokesman. Initially it was about getting his daughter home - and his wife, who had learned the terrible fate of the eldest of her three children in an airport hallway en route to Sarah's hospital bedside.

Then there were services in Auckland and Wellington. I attended the Wellington service and heard of an intelligent, caring, promising young woman, and saw a devastated family.

But it is what has happened in the months since that has made me proud of my old flatmate. He has applied his intelligence to ensure the death of his daughter in Chiang Mai, and four other mysterious deaths in the first two months of this year in the same area, would not be swept under the carpet. That some knowledge would be gained.

Clever statements to the media and a website have kept the pressure on Thai authorities, desperate to protect their tourism industry. He criticised their lack of initial investigation and claims that the deaths of his daughter, a Thai national, and an English couple at about the same time in the same hotel were coincidental.

This week Thai authorities released a report into Sarah's death, which is believed to have been caused by pesticides sprayed in her hotel room. Nine recommendations were made to reduce further risks of chemical and pesticide exposure in Thailand, and to help sick tourists.

Through his agitation, Richard may have saved other families from the devastating loss his has suffered. All I can offer Richard, Anna and their two surviving children are the words their daughter spoke to a friend going through a tough time, who shared her memories in Karori in February. "It's OK to be not OK," Sarah said.