Chain saw injuries in Myanmar tied to illegal logging
As darkness fell in the forests of central Myanmar on a rainy evening last July, May Thu and her husband Myint Swe*, were wrapping up their day’s work: illegal logging. May Thu, a petite 27-year-old with long black hair and shining black eyes, clambered on top of some logs assembled in a pile. It was monsoon season and the wood was slippery. She fell and landed on the buzzing blade of her husband’s chain saw. At first, there was no pain, but she knew she was in trouble. “OK, I just got injured by a chain saw, this will be big,” she recalls thinking. Myint Swe, a gentle man with foxlike features and a nervous disposition, scooped her up. “It’s just a small one,” he lied as he carried her back to their village. They had been happily married for 10 years. But when she asked him to stop so she could look at the wound, she saw a deep incision across the backs of her legs, backside and vagina. There was a tremendous amount of blood.
