The 118th and 119th Recipients of the 'LG Uisin Award' Are

Mr. Jinwoon Kim

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyewon] LG Welfare Foundation announced on the 16th that it will award the 'LG Hero Award' to Kim Jin-woon (47), who rescued two women from a truck that fell into the sea due to an accident in Yeosu, Jeollanam-do, and Ha Kyung-min (35), who evacuated residents at an apartment fire scene in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do, preventing further casualties.

On the morning of the 4th, Kim witnessed a cargo truck near Soho Port in Yeosu, Jeollanam-do, collide with a cement structure while trying to avoid an oncoming vehicle and fall 3 meters into the sea. Kim immediately jumped into the sea with his bare body and swam to the truck, which was slowly sinking from the rear, and found two women trapped inside the vehicle.

As water gradually filled the driver's side and the vehicle door would not open, Kim swam to a barge docked nearby, retrieved a metal chair, and repeatedly struck the front windshield of the vehicle. When the glass broke and a small hole was created, Kim used his bare hands to tear around the broken glass to make a space large enough for a person to escape. He first rescued the driver and moved him to the barge, then jumped back into the sea and safely rescued the other woman in the passenger seat.

Kim fought for about 20 minutes in the cold winter sea, breaking the car window, injuring his hands severely, but calmly soothed the two women, reported to 119, and handed them over to the rescue team that arrived. Kim, a fishing boat captain, has been suffering from ankylosing spondylitis, a condition that gradually stiffens the spine, but said, "In such an urgent situation, I had no time to report and only thought about saving people first, so I jumped into the sea."

Mr. Ha Kyung-min

In November last year, Ha received a call from his spouse that a fire had broken out in the apartment next to the one he lived in, located in Seongsan-gu, Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do. Ha immediately ran to the burning apartment, ran up the stairs from the first floor, kicked each floor's front door one by one, and shouted loudly, "Fire!" to help residents evacuate. Upon reaching the 11th floor, filled with flames and smoke, he found a woman who was burned and unable to move on the stairs and carried her down to the first floor himself.

An official from LG Welfare Foundation stated, "Even in dangerous situations where they could have lost their lives, these citizens could not just watch others in danger and bravely jumped into the cold winter sea and flames without hesitation. We want to encourage their courageous actions together."

LG has expanded the scope of the LG Hero Award, which was previously given to heroes who sacrificed themselves for the nation and social justice, to include citizens who have set examples through good deeds and volunteer work for our society and neighbors since last year. Including Kim and Ha, there have been 119 recipients of the LG Hero Award to date.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.