"수백대 구급차 보내줬듯 이제는 우리가 나설 때"...대구 소방관이 최전선에서 겪은 코로나
Paramedics transporting COVID-19 patients to hospitals have been on the frontlines of battling this outbreak and South Korea is recognizing their tireless work in the face of extreme adversity.
We wanted to hear from one... so we sent our Choi Jeong-yoon to Daegu, once South Korea's hardest-hit city,... to hear their story.
Check it out.
Catastrophic.
That’s how second-year paramedic Kim Soo-jung describes the COVID-19 crisis.
At the peak of the epidemic, more than 300 COVID-19 patients were being moved to hospitals every day across South Korea.
“Overall, it was a social disaster. The number of patients kept skyrocketing but Daegu didn’t have enough hospitals or ambulances to deal with all the people.”
Helping Daegu in its time of need were the huge number of firefighters who came in from all over the country.
More than 900 firefighters descended on the city and moved close to seven-and-a-half-thousand patients during the pandemic.
“Seeing hundreds of ambulances gathered in the same place for the first time and all the paramedics speaking different dialects from different regions was overwhelming. We only had one aim: to send patients to a safe environment.”
Gearing up was physically grueling.
She had to go through the so-called 5 steps: putting on her protective suit, pulling on her overshoes, wearing goggles, a mask and gloves.
"When you have all this stuff on, it's very hard to hear and see. Above all, as the day warmed up, the protective suit got so sweaty and stuffy.”
What helped her overcome those difficulties and focus on the task at hand was her sense of duty.
“Being a firefighter is about serving citizens and saving people in danger. That's the reason I decided to become a firefighter and that's what made me endure the discomfort.”
Daegu has now largely flattened the curve thanks to the hard work of medical staff, fire fighters and the city's citizens. With Seoul seeing another big community-based transmission, she says it's time for the country to pull together again.
She added the challenging times Daegu went through provided invaluable experience about how to systematically respond to the crisis.
Choi Jeong-yoon, Arirang News, Daegu.
