“There was a fire and he wasn’t the kind of person who would take care of himself first. I think he went up to get the residents out first.”
On the 12th, a fellow security guard whom I met at an apartment in Unam-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju, Jeollanam-do, sighed as he explained the situation of Mr. Lim (70s), a security guard at the time of the fire the previous day.
It is said that after the fire broke out, Mr. Lim climbed the stairs of the apartment where black smoke was spreading and knocked on the doors of each house to inform residents of the fire.
A resident who evacuated at the time said, "I heard that someone was evacuated because the security guard knocked on the door. He was the person who usually greeted me first, but I feel heavy to hear that he was seriously injured."
A fellow security guard who worked in another building reported the situation at the time when he could not contact Mr. Lim.
He recalled, “The fire alarm only went off in that building, so I didn’t even know there was a fire at first,” and “I called Mr. Lim after seeing the emergency disaster text message, but he didn’t answer.”
Colleagues said they had always advised Mr. Lim not to force his way into the building even if there was a fire and to take care of his own safety first.
Another security guard expressed regret, saying, “I always told him to take care of himself first if there was a fire, but he was a kind-hearted person, so when a fire broke out, it seems he couldn’t just come out and leave the residents behind.”
In the end, Mr. Lim was unable to get out of the building and was found in cardiac arrest on the stairs on the 13th floor. He was taken to the hospital, but is in critical condition.
To colleagues who knew Mr. Lim on a daily basis, his actions were not unexpected.
A security guard who works with Mr. Lim explained about Mr. Lim, “He used to clean up trash in other buildings even though it was not his job,” and “He was a person who always worked quietly.”
A day after the fire broke out, traces of the time were still visible in the apartment along the stairs that Mr. Lim had climbed.
Inside the building, the acrid burnt smell did not go away and the elevator was stopped.
The stairs leading to the upper floor were dark with the lights turned off, and the water sprayed here and there during the firefighting process had not yet dried.
As we went up past the 6th floor where the fire started, the soot on the walls and ceiling became thicker, and the white walls turned black to the point where their original color was difficult to recognize.
There was also testimony that at the time of the fire, even the hallway lights were turned off, making it difficult to evacuate.
One resident who evacuated by taking the elevator that day said, "When I left the house, the lights in the hallway were on, but later they turned off," and "I wonder how difficult it must have been to go up the dark stairs and tell people."
The apartment's electrical safety manager said, "The smoke detector activated and the fire alarm went off," and "It appears that the hallway lights were turned off due to an electrical short circuit during the fire."
This fire broke out on the 6th floor of an apartment building at 6:33 pm the previous day, and three people, including Lim, were seriously injured and 11 others were slightly injured.
Based on a statement made by a woman in her 60s who was in the house where the fire broke out to the effect that "my son started the fire in the room," the police plan to book her son in his 40s on charges including arson of a building in Hyeonju and causing injury.
Police and fire authorities are investigating the exact cause of the fire through on-site inspection.
