(Presidentialwire.com)- Three American soldiers have received praise for saving “more than 30 lives” during the Saturday night crush on Halloween in Seoul, South Korea, which claimed at least 156 lives.
Dane Beathard, 32, Jarmil Taylor, 40, and Jerome Augusta, 34, claimed to have pulled individuals out of the rush so that the injured could receive medical assistance.
According to Yonhap News Agency, a South Korean news agency, the three men “saved more than 30 lives.”
More than 100,000 people, many of whom were dressed in costumes, flocked to Seoul’s Itaewon nightlife area to celebrate Halloween.
One survivor, a man in his 20s from the city of Cheongju, told the news agency that he was rescued from a small passageway after passing out in the crowd.
The man claimed he was confident that one of the American soldiers who were not on duty had saved him.
“The conditions of the Itaewon catastrophe and rescue actions, as described by the three American soldiers in their interviews, are exactly the same as what I experienced,” the survivor continued.
The man told Yonhap that he wanted to personally thank the American soldiers since their actions helped reduce casualties.
Taylor told AFP that “everyone just fell on top of each other like dominoes,” which is how the catastrophe started.
The soldier said there were layers of people. They were lying on top of people. They weren’t enough individuals to assist them all at once. They created a mass panic, which worsened the situation. It was impossible to find people in peril because of the noises; shouting individuals muffled them.
Young women made up a disproportionate number of the casualties. Their diaphragms were crushed because they were smaller.
People were at a loss for what to do. Many individuals were performing CPR on those on the ground when the police arrived. Everything took place in a split second.
A representative of the U.S. State Department confirmed that two Americans perished in the Itaewon disaster.
