Home > National > Social Affairs

Veteran rescue worker reflects on extreme danger in recent rescue operations

Published: 17 Apr. 2025, 20:07

Officials from the fire authorities observe members of the Gyeonggi Fire and Disaster Headquarters' Special Response Unit as they recover the body of a man killed in the Shinansan Line tunnel construction site collapse in, Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi on April 16. [GYEONGGI FIRE DEPARTMENT]

When a subway construction site at the new Shinansan Line in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi suddenly collapsed on the afternoon of April 11, two workers disappeared under a mountain of concrete, steel and earth.

Seventeen others scrambled to safety. What followed was a five-day rescue effort through treacherous conditions — one that ended in the tragic death of one man and the dramatic rescue of another.

A 54-year-old employee of Posco E&C and a 29-year-old subcontractor fixing an excavator were above ground when the structure collapsed. Both were buried in the rubble.

The Gyeonggi Fire and Disaster Headquarters' Special Response Unit — an elite team composed of veterans from Korea’s special forces and military intelligence — and five other rescue teams arrived under Level 1 emergency protocol.

Rescue Team 1, led by captain Lee Jun-seung, took nearly five days to recover the older worker's body.

“The whole time we were recovering the missing worker, I couldn’t stop thinking about the three cracked concrete slabs, each about three meters long and the size of a car, hanging above our heads,” Lee said. “At one point, I even said, ‘Are we going to die on the job like this?’”

Lee is a veteran rescue worker who served for eight years in the Defense Intelligence Command, where he was discharged as master sergeant before joining the fire service through a special recruitment program.

The younger worker was luckier.

Rescue Team 2, rotating in grueling 24-hour shifts, found him roughly 13 hours after the collapse.

“An overhead structure had collapsed into an empty underground space, so we had to work very carefully with safety as the top priority, which took a lot of time.” Lee said. “When the operation was delayed, the victim asked, ‘Am I going to survive?’ That’s when I made up my mind that we had to save him no matter what.”

Lee had been in another tight spot just weeks earlier.

He led a rope rescue at a collapsed bridge site in Anseong, Gyeonggi on Feb. 26 by chipping away at concrete by hand with a 15-kilogram tool to save a man trapped under a 400-ton beam.

“In Anseong, it was construction equipment threatening to fall. In Gwangmyeong, it was concrete slabs hanging from steel beams,” he said. “Either way, it’s dangerous.”

“But this is what we do. Whether they walk out or we carry them out — out mission is to get them home.”

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.

BY SON SUNG-BAE [[email protected]]