Teen survivor of Itaewon crowd crush found dead

A high school student, one of the survivors of the traumatic crowd crush in the Itaewon area, was found dead at an accommodation, presumably after having a hard time dealing with the nightmare.

The teenager’s body was discovered around 11:40 p.m. on Monday at a lodging facility in Mapo District, western Seoul, according to the Seoul Mapo Police Station. It was reported that he checked in around 7 p.m. on that day. His mother, worried about his son not returning home after studying at school until the night, reported him missing, leading the police to search for his whereabouts. No signs of crime were found at the scene, only leading to the suspicion that he committed suicide, although no will of his was left.

It was found that the dead boy had lost all the two friends of his who had accompanied him in the crowd crush in Itaewon. He was even driven into a critical condition where his leg muscles ruptured following the accident, later receiving treatment and recovering from the injury.

Afterward, he had two sessions of psychological treatment a week with in-school counseling also provided to the boy regularly, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. His parents and homeroom teacher kept a close eye on him to ensure he dealt with such a traumatic experience. However, his sudden death only left a professional counseling teacher, who took care of him, deeply shocked as he seemed to move on and actively engage in school activities, according to the city education agency.

“The sufferings of the survivors might have been excruciatingly harsh on this high school freshman,” a visitor of his funeral, known as one of his parents’ acquaintances, wrote on an online forum. “His parents find it hard to process what has happened to their son because he received some psychological treatment and seemed fine back to school as far as they knew.” The Association of Families of Itaewon Disaster Victims first intended to visit his funeral but did not do so as his bereaved family wanted to keep it away from attention.


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