Tag: suicide

What a quick turn for the worse his life had taken after reaching the heights of fame by winning an Oscar for his performance in Parasite:

Actor Lee Sun-kyun of the Oscar-winning film “Parasite” was found dead in an apparent suicide Wednesday amid an investigation into suspected drug use.

Police found a man in his 40s dead in a car near Waryong Park in central Seoul at 10:30 a.m. and later identified him as Lee. A charcoal briquette, which can cause fatal carbon monoxide poisoning, was found on the vehicle’s front passenger seat. 

Lee’s manager had earlier reported to the police that the actor left home after writing a memo akin to a suicide note and that his car was gone. The manager had visited Lee’s home in Cheongdam-dong in southern Seoul as he was out of contact.

Lee’s body was later taken to Seoul National University Hospital for his funeral.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but Lee was under investigation for using drugs at a Gangnam hostess bar. He claims he was being extorted by the hostess and tested negative for drugs when questioned by police. Regardless of the drug allegations, Lee is married with two kids so why is he hanging out at a hostess bar in the first place?

This lawmaker had to get a whole decade of suicide death data to reach this 144 number which to me does not seem very high considering the huge population of teachers in South Korea. This number would be more meaningful compared to other professions with similar numbers of employees. For example how many truck drivers or delivery workers have committed suicide over the past decade?:

Wreaths of condolence flowers are laid in front of an elementary school in the central city of Daejeon in this file photo taken Sept. 8, 2023, after a teacher there died by an apparent suicide. (Yonhap)

The number of elementary, middle and high school teachers who took their own life over the past decade amounted to 144, a ruling party lawmaker said Wednesday, citing data from the Ministry of Education.

The suicides occurred between 2014 and August this year, Rep. Lee Tae-kyu of the ruling People Power Party said, noting the annual number spiked from six in 2014 to 20 in 2018 and 25 in 2021.

The number decreased to 20 last year but as many as 14 teachers died by suicide in the first eight months of this year, Lee added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is very weird especially since the police are focusing on suicide as the cause for at least four of the deaths:

A family of five has been found dead in three different locations in and around Seoul, and police are investigating connections into their deaths, police said Saturday. 

Police received a report at 7:29 a.m. of a 40-year-old woman having jumped off an apartment building in Songpa in eastern Seoul, officials said. 

She was sent to a hospital in cardiac arrest but later pronounced dead.

While police were checking the woman’s whereabouts in the lead-up to her death, they discovered her husband, mother- and sister-in-law dead in a residence in the same district. 

Police then found the couple’s teenage daughter dead at a hotel in Gimpo, just west of Seoul. 

Police said a note was found at one of the scenes that indicated a conflict over money. 

Police said they believe four of them, excluding the daughter, took their own lives, and an autopsy will be carried out on her to figure out the exact cause of death.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The South Korean military is facing suicide problems just like the U.S. military, but is focusing on bullying as the reason. I don’t support bullying in the military, but I think it has more to do with today’s youth being poorly conditioned both physically and mentally prior to entering military service. A lot of youth in South Korea do not conduct much physical activity, are on their phones all day, and playing video games. They are conscripted into the military where phones and video games are not as freely available and are doing exhausting physical activity which they are not used to. I think this all plays into why Soldiers may commit suicide especially when they are forced to be there:

Kim Gi-cheol remembers his son’s determination to fulfill his military duty as a South Korean citizen, despite having the opportunity to secure an exemption by acquiring foreign nationality.

Having spent an extended period abroad, his son was relatively unfamiliar with the Korean language and culture. Nevertheless, Kim never imagined that his son, who was proud to serve his home country, would be dead just three months after enlisting.

In November 2022, while stationed at a general post in Yanggu County, Gangwon Province near the inter-Korean border, Pvt. Kim took his own life.

The military and the police concluded the case as a suicide, presenting the rifle he used and testimony from his colleagues as evidence.

As the investigation unfolded, Kim’s father learned that his son had faced “systemic” bullying from his colleagues and military officers, and that he had trouble adjusting to military life. Pvt. Kim was reportedly pushed to the brink, forced to take on guard duties without adequate training amid an escalating security situation following North Korea’s consecutive missile launches.

“If someone is pondering changing their nationality, I implore them to do so without a second thought,” Kim told The Korea Herald. “Why should we subject our children to the military of the Republic of Korea, which has fallen into such a dismal state?”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but does anyone else have any theories on why ROK military servicemembers commit suicide?

The case of a 23 year old elementary school teacher that committed suicide inside her classroom before school started has drawn big headlines in South Korea:

An elementary student on Tuesday pays his respects at a memorial set up for the 23-year-old elementary school teacher in Seoul’s Seocho-gu who took her own life last week. (Yonhap)

The bereaved family of a 23-year-old junior elementary school teacher who took her own life last week released part of her diary indicating that she had struggled with too much work and an unruly student on Tuesday, amid the ongoing investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death.

“After going to work on Monday, I was bombarded with an immense workload and chaos caused by a student. I just wanted to let go of everything (at that point),” a diary entry presumed to have been written on July 3 reads.

Another entry read, “I was out of breath. My hands were shaking, and I almost burst into tears while eating.”

Amid rumors that the teacher may have been bullied by several parents’ excessive complaints and reports filed at her school regarding her teaching and handling of school affairs, police said Tuesday that they had summoned a parent who had allegedly complained in an attempt to determine the exact cause of her death.

According to reports, the late first grade teacher had been verbally harassed by the parent of a student who had suffered from school violence in the first semester. The parent had allegedly complained about the teacher’s lack of qualifications for failing to prevent the bullying from occurring.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but in my opinion she was working in the wrong profession if she could not handle one unruly first grader and a parent complaining about their kid being bullied. I would not be surprised if there is more going on here.

Good on this firefighter for saving the life of this woman who really wanted to die. Hopefully she gets the treatment she clearly needs:

Kim Chan-soo with the Gimhae Seobu Fire Station pulled the woman to safety from Samrangjin Bridge as she was trying to jump after taking sleeping pills.

Kim was driving over the bridge to go to work in another city and came across the woman sitting at the side of the bridge. She was taking pills and bleeding from her arms and legs.

Kim approached the woman and found she was taking sleeping pills.

Kim removed the pills from her mouth and tried to calm her, then calling the 119 emergency service.

But when Kim went to move his car, which had been blocking traffic on the bridge, the woman climbed over the handrail. She was caught by Kim narrowly before falling from the bridge and was pulled up.

The woman reportedly was found to have consumed 20 pills and three bottles of soju, and was receiving treatment at a hospital.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I feel horrible for the rental car employee that discovered this seen:

A photo of the Gyeonggi Gwangju Police Station provided by the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency

Four people have been found dead inside a car in an apparent group suicide in the southern outskirts of Seoul, police said Tuesday.

The four — three men in their 30s and a woman in her 20s — were discovered by a car-rental company employee inside the car parked under an overpass in Gwangju, 32 kilometers south of Seoul, at 5:20 p.m. on Monday.

Inside the car, traces suggesting suicides were found, police said, adding there were no signs of intrusion or foul play. Four wrecked mobile phones presumably belonging to the deceased were also found on the scene.

The car was reportedly leased last Friday but was not returned on time, prompting the employee to track its location.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is absolutely horrible:

An apartment in Seoul’s Nowon district where an apparent murder-suicide involving a family of three occurred is cordoned off by police on May 3, 2023. (Yonhap)

A family of three, including a months-old baby, were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide in northeastern Seoul on Wednesday, police said.

A 33-year-old-man surnamed Lee, his 37-year-old wife and their baby, believed to be several months old, were found dead by the police at an apartment in the Nowon district at 4:46 a.m.

The woman was found stabbed with a knife inside the apartment, and the bodies of the man and the baby were found outside, the police said, adding officers went there after receiving a call from the man’s father.

The police began an investigation, speculating the man may have killed his wife before jumping off the apartment building with the baby.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.