3 heroes swept in and saved 30 in Itaewon, then vanished

Three heroes who swept in and saved an estimated 30 people from the Itaewon crush, and then mysteriously vanished into the night, turned out to be American soldiers stationed in Korea.

Police and firefighters on Sunday look over the alleyway next to the Hamilton Hotel, the site of the crowd crush in Itaewon, central Seoul, that claimed the lives of over 150 people on Saturday. [NEWS1]

Three heroes who swept in and saved an estimated 30 people from the Itaewon crush, and then mysteriously vanished into the night, turned out to be American soldiers stationed in Korea.

A man in his 20s from Cheongju, North Chungcheong, told the local press that he was stuck in the alley next to the Hamilton Hotel, first caught between one person going up and another down and then buried under four people, when a hand reached down and pulled him out.

The Korean man had been trapped for about 15 minutes.

After the man was pulled out, the rescuer along with two others went to save about 30 more people, and vanished after the emergency responders were on the scene.

The rescued man later found out that the three rescuers were Jarmil Taylor, 40, Jerome Augusta, 34, and Dane Beathard, 32, after reading an interview of the three with the AFP.

"The situation described by the soldiers in the interview exactly overlaps with what I experienced," the rescued man said. "I am convinced that they are the ones."

According to the interview published by AFP, the three U.S. soldiers, who visited Itaewon on their week off, pulled body after body out of the crowd.

"We were picking a lot of people and taking them into the nearby clubs since they had finally opened them up. The club's floor was filed with people laid on the ground," Taylor told the AFP.

The Korean man thanked the soldiers for rescuing him from the deadly scene.

"I was stuck was at the center of the alley where the emergency responders arrived the latest," the rescued man said.

"Thanks to those who actively rescued people at the scene, we could avoid an even worse situation."

The Itaewon tragedy claimed at least 156 lives on Saturday night, including 26 foreigners, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, as of Thursday afternoon.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]