They tried their best to save people, but with little luck

Some bystanders perform CPR on people crushed in an alley on Saturday in Itaewon, central Seoul. [YONHAP]

She pressed and pressed, desperate for a pulse. There was no response. She pressed some more. Still no response.

As a family medicine professor at the National Cancer Center, she had no doubt that her years of practice could help victims of the Itaewon crowd crush last Saturday night when she heard the shocking news.

She was with a friend in nearby Hannam-dong, enjoying her weekend.

But when she arrived on the scene at 11:37 p.m., nearly an hour and a half after firefighters received their first call about the surge, it was too late.

Bodies were scattered all over the main street near the alley where they were crushed, their faces tinted a bluish-purple hue from oxygen deprivation.

They were motionless. There was nothing she could do.

“It looked like a warzone,” said the doctor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I went from patient to patient to perform CPR, giving 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute.”

The doctor can’t remember how many people she tried to revive. One thing she does remember, however, is that none responded.

Three hours later, almost all the bodies had been transferred to nearby hospitals. Families and friends were still frantically searching for their loved ones.

The doctor dropped to the ground, feeling helpless.

“Not a single person I performed CPR on came back alive,” she said. “No matter how much I compressed, I couldn’t feel a pulse. I felt like an incompetent doctor.”

Days after that traumatic accident, she still feels remorse for all the lives she couldn’t save.

“The only thing that went through my mind was that I had to save these people,” she recalled. “They were like my younger brothers and sisters. They were too young to die.”

As local authorities continue to investigate what led to the deaths of at least 156 people that night in Itaewon, central Seoul, when tens of thousands of revelers showed up to celebrate Halloween, some argue that additional lives could have been saved if more bystanders performed CPR.

Had partygoers in the area swiftly come to the rescue and put to practice whatever first aid knowledge they had before first responders arrived, more victims would have been saved, they say.

The only problem is that not many Koreans actually know CPR, said Gong Ha-seong, a professor of firefighting and disaster prevention at Woosuk University.

“CPR is taught in grade school,” said Gong, “but it’s the type of education that comes and goes, and which people can’t really put into practice when they face an actual situation that requires the knowledge.

“The initial medical response in Itaewon was insufficient, so bystanders should have really jumped in to help,” said Gong.

“Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”

Lee Da-un, 24, a nurse who was celebrating Halloween with her friends in Itaewon, rushed to the scene to offer CPR.

Like the doctor, however, there wasn’t much that she could do.

“I started CPR the moment I heard someone yell, ‘Is there anyone here who can perform CPR?’ at the scene,” said Lee. “But when I approached the bodies, they were already in horrible condition, beyond any medical treatment.”

As she was compressing, Lee recalls screaming to the crowd, “Don’t just stand there! Come help!”

But very few people came forward, said Lee.

“I think we wouldn’t have seen so many deaths if more people knew how to do CPR,” said Lee.

A first responder who was dispatched to Itaewon that night said he did witness a lot of people performing CPR – but on the wrong bodies.

“I saw a lot of people on the streets giving chest compressions on patients who had already died.”

He had not much better luck.

“The people that I whisked to the hospital were people who had already died or who barely had any chance of living even if they received treatment,” said the first responder, who refused to be identified.

Actor Yoon Hong-bin revealed on Instagram Sunday that he was a part of dozens of bystanders who performed CPR in Itaewon, but said he was unable to save anyone.

“I gave CPR for over 20 minutes,” said Yoon. “Among [all the people on the] street that did CPR, only one person regained consciousness.”

Seoul’s education chief Cho Hee-yeon said on Monday that education authorities would think of ways to strengthen public safety education such as CPR.

A total of 156 people died in the Itaewon crowd surge, including 26 foreigners: five from Iran, four from China, four from Russia, two from the United States, two from Japan and one from each France, Australia, Austria, Norway, Vietnam, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Sri Lanka.

Nearly three-quarters of the deaths were under the age of 30, while two-thirds were women.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN, SHIN SUNG-SHIK [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]