Daegu Nursing Home Late-Night Fire 'Narrow Escape'... Rescue Team's Swift Response Prevents Casualties

The scene of the nursing home building in Nam-gu, Daegu, where the incident occurred late at night on the 26th.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Dong-wook] On the night of the 26th, a fire broke out in a building housing a nursing home in downtown Daegu, but the quick judgment and prompt response of the firefighters prevented major damage.

According to Daegu City, shortly after midnight, a fire report was received at the fire headquarters about a fire at a mart on the first floor of a five-story building located in Daemyeong-dong, Nam-gu.

Upon receiving the report, firefighter Jeong Mo at the 119 comprehensive situation room confirmed the address and identified that a nursing home was located in the building on fire. He immediately informed the nursing home officials of the fire. At the same time, the 119 dispatch team was pre-informed about the number of people inside, their locations, and conditions to enable rapid rescue and patient triage.

The flames and toxic gases that started on the first floor quickly spread throughout the entire building. The fire brigade arrived 4 minutes and 30 seconds after the fire was reported, deploying three rescue teams?more than usual?and completely extinguished the fire within about 20 minutes before swiftly proceeding with rescue operations.

Five elderly residents on the fifth floor who had not yet evacuated were moved to the rooftop, and after the fire was fully extinguished, they were rescued outside the building in a tense scene.

The ambulance team set up a temporary emergency medical center to triage patients, and since many elderly needed transport, rescue workers worked hard to distribute them to hospitals and other nursing homes using 12 ambulances. Fortunately, aside from minor smoke inhalation, there were no other casualties.

The nursing home staff also contributed to preventing casualties by protecting residents’ airways with wet towels and moving beds to safer locations to guide the firefighters until they arrived.

A nursing home official expressed gratitude, saying, "We were thinking about how to support the firefighters who have been struggling with COVID-19, but instead, we received great help. Most of the residents are elderly in their 80s and 90s with limited mobility, and we didn’t know what to do, but thanks to the firefighters’ quick response and efforts, no one was injured and the crisis was averted."

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