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Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, shakes the hand of a firefighter who was present at the scene of the Itaewon crowd crush during a visit to the Yongsan Fire Station on Nov. 9. (Kim Gyoung-ho/The Hankyoreh)

“There wasn’t a moment at the scene when emergency workers were just ‘walking.’ We’re all so worried and afraid our activities are going to get ignored. Help make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Lee Eun-ju, head of the emergency team for Seoul’s Yongsan Fire Station, wept as she explained the situation at the time of the Itaewon crowd crush on Oct. 29 during a meeting Wednesday with Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung and lawmakers in the party.

The firefighter was voicing her feelings of injustice over the booking of the station’s chief, Choi Seong-beom, on charges of professional negligence resulting in death for his alleged failure to promptly declare a fire response stage, despite his having spent the entire night of the disaster working to rescue victims.

“While I did not work at the scene on the day in question, I have been viewing the emergency workers’ activities that day in detail due to my role in charge of emergency-related areas,” she said.

“Seeing how frantically our staff was working at the time, I even felt guilty — that it was wrong for me not to have been there with them,” she added tearfully.

During their meeting with Lee Eun-ju for Fire Service Recognition Day, Lee Eun-ju and the other Yongsan Fire Station employees expressed complex feelings about the current investigation by the National Police Agency special investigation headquarters.

“Firefighters are always first to the scene and the last ones to go home, yet they’ve booked [Choi], and we’ve faced two searches and seizures,” said Kim Jin-cheol, head of the station’s administration team.

“We did all we could, and there are a lot of aspects of this that feel unfair,” he added, choking back tears.

Choi, who now finds himself under investigation, was also present at the meeting that day, but remained quiet apart from a report on his duties and the situation at the time of the tragedy.

Responding to the appeals from the Yongsan Fire Station’s firefighters, Lee Jae-myung said, “When you suffer a defeat in war, the biggest responsibility lies with the commander — it is not the responsibility of the soldiers who battle on the front lines.”

“I hope we do not see a case where the responsibility is passed off on the people who worked and battled so hard on the front lines,” he added.

Praising the firefighters for their hard work, Lee pledged to “do my best to see to it that the grave responsibility for a great national tragedy is not passed off on all of you who worked so hard on the ground, and people down the line are not scapegoated to avoid the people higher up being held responsible.”

Democratic Party floor spokesperson Oh Yeong-hwan, himself a former firefighter, said, “When I think of the guilt you are still feeling over having been unable to save more people that day, I feel truly terrible about this occasion.”

“Your efforts to protect the public that night will not be ignored or forgotten,” he reassured them.

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter; Oh Yeon-seo, staff reporter

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