Soldiers Rescue Elderly Woman and Daughter in Uijongbu
Nomad provides a link to this story about US soldiers rescuing an elderly Korean woman and her handicapped daughter from a fire in Uijongbu:
Two Camp Red Cloud Soldiers saved an elderly woman and her handicapped daughter when a sandwich shop caught fire just outside the camp’s front gate July 1.
Pvt. Reid Erickson and Pvt. Russell McCanless Jr. of Headquarters and Headquarters Support Company, Special Troops Battalion, were first on the scene when New York Sub sandwich shop caught fire.
¿We walked out of 7 Club to see whether or not I could do handstand pushups, and when I was doing them I noticed something behind us,¿ Erickson said. Standing and turning around, he saw smoke coming from the shop.
Rushing to the fire, they tried opening the glass door to the sandwich shop to find it hot and locked. The Soldiers then sought assistance at a Korean Police booth outside the gate.
¿We realized when we came back that there was an apartment upstairs and rang the buzzer,¿ Erickson said. ¿Finally an elderly lady came downstairs and she didn¿t speak English. The only thing she could say is `Come in! Come in!¿ She was pretty frantic about it, so we ran upstairs.¿
Upstairs, the elderly woman pointed toward a bedroom behind thick smoke.
¿She pointed toward the bedroom and her daughter came crawling out. She was paralyzed,¿ Erickson said.
By the time the Soldiers got both women downstairs via an external stairwell on the side of the building, the paramedics and fire department had already arrived.
Great job by these two guys and good thing PVT Erickson can do handstand pushups. I don’t hold much hope if this story being covered in the Korean media though. I bet if they jumped on top of a taxi cab after rescuing the family than it would make the Korean news.
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UPDATE: Here is the link to an article in the Stars and Stripes:
Neither Jung nor her daughter suffered serious injuries from the fire. For that, the soldiers have Jung¿s eternal gratitude.
¿How can anyone enter a burning house to save a stranger? It is not an easy act at all,¿ Jung said in a phone interview. ¿And what I am truly impressed about by the American men is that they know exactly how to treat a disabled person in a dangerous situation. I can¿t thank them enough in words.¿
I wonder if these quotes will ever be published in the Korean media?
