A man beat to death in a crowded street.

A group of drunken high school students attacked a 24-year old man who bumped into them in an alley full of restaurants near Sincheon Subway Station, Seoul, and beat him so badly he died 19 days later.

No one in the alley interceded or called the police, but if someone had, police said, the man probably would have survived.

According to the Songpa Police Station, a 24-year old man surnamed Yang bumped shoulders with members of a group of seven high school students on vacation from their studies in a Southeastern Asian country, while walking with his 19-year-old friend Kim on June 17. All of the individuals were drunk, police said, and a fight began at 3:20 a.m. Kim tried in vain to stop the 15 minute attack, and then the students fled the scene in taxis.

Police said although the beating occurred in a crowded alley, not a single person stopped the fight or called the police. Kim called a friend for help, but the two of them couldn’t rouse Yang and called the police. An ambulance took him to a hospital, but he was already suffering from a cerebral hemorrhage. Yang had been unconscious since, and died Tuesday.

An official from the police said, “Yang would not have died if someone called the police, and we would have arrested the men at the scene.”

“How does this happen in middle of Seoul?” lamented Yang’s father, 42. “I can’t believe no one called the police.”

A police investigation revealed that Yang grew up in an orphanage from the age of five because his father abandoned him after his mother committed suicide due to postpartum depression.

The Songpa Police station identified the seven students by looking at CCTV video and tracing cell phone calls from the area. The police banned the students from leaving the country, but one of them already departed.

The police conducted an autopsy on Wednesday, and Yang’s burial ceremony was held Thursday.

By Song Ji-hye [enational@joongang.co.kr]