"Die, Don't Come" Son Saves Elderly Mother Holding Only Her Head Above Rapids, Gets Emotional

Dike Burst Floods Daejeon Sagoo Jeongbaengi Village
Son Who Rescued Mother Breaks Down While Recounting the Incident

On the 10th, a story was shared about a son who jumped into floodwaters to rescue his mother in a rural village that was submerged after a levee collapsed due to heavy rain in Daejeon.

On the 11th, on the CBS radio program 'Kim Hyun-jung's News Show,' Kim Jung-hoon, a resident of Daejeon city, recounted via phone interview the situation in which he saved his mother during the heavy rain the previous day. From 5 p.m. on the 8th to 5 a.m. on the 10th, Daejeon experienced a cumulative rainfall of 156.5mm. Due to this rain, the levee near Jeongbaengi Village in Yongchon-dong, Seo-gu, Daejeon, collapsed around 4 a.m. on the 10th, and a sudden torrent flooded the entire village.

In the early morning of the 10th, due to heavy rain, the entrance roads to Jeongbaengi Village in Yongchon-dong, Seo-gu, Daejeon were all submerged in water. Firefighters are transporting residents on rubber boats.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

Kim, who lives in Daejeon city, received a call from his sister-in-law early on the 10th saying, "Mother is unreachable. All the villagers have evacuated, but mother is missing." He rushed to the village. When he arrived, the levee had already collapsed, and water was flooding the village. Kim described the situation, saying, "The incoming water surged like waves pushed by the Pacific Ocean, but it was freshwater."

He said, "When I saw my mother's house, the water had risen up to the eaves, and I could hear her voice calling for help. I couldn't see anyone, but the cries for help were loud." He added, "I called someone who had evacuated and was told that mother had not been able to get out."

As an excavator operator, Kim said, "I tried to approach my mother's house with the excavator I brought, but the water current was so strong and wavy that it was difficult to get close." He explained that he left the excavator and swam directly to his mother's house. Kim first found a neighbor woman who had not yet evacuated. He said, "The neighbor was holding onto a pillar with only her head above water, her neck submerged," and added, "I helped the neighbor onto the roof first, then went to my mother."

Kim said, "My mother was holding onto the eaves' end pillar, with only her neck above water, enduring the flood." He recalled, "When I approached, she said, 'You will die. Don't come.'" Overcome with emotion recalling the situation, Kim broke into tears. Climbing over the roof and entering the water again, he approached his mother but said, "She was too weak for me to lift her." He explained, "A sofa floated by, so I placed my mother on it and then lifted her from the sofa onto the roof."

After climbing onto the roof with his mother, he said, "The neighbor woman kept slipping off the roof, so I kept telling her, 'Hold on just a little longer, hold on just a little longer,' when the 119 rescue team arrived with a boat." Kim added, "After rescuing both, within about 10 minutes, the water level rose to completely submerge the height where my mother had been sticking her neck out," and said, "If we had been 10 minutes later, they all would have died."

According to the Daejeon Fire Department, all 36 residents who were trapped in Jeongbaengi Village due to the heavy rain were rescued within about four hours that day.