The 5th floor of the main building of Ahyun Building. 11:03 p.m.
Bang!!
Dowook and Lee Ji-seok, who passed the long hallway as soon as the door opened, ran to the food court and stood in front of the escalator.
"I think this place, which is the center, will be faster than the outer emergency exit. What do you think?"
"I agree. I think this route will be the easiest."
Dowook moved toward the sixth floor where the concert hall was located and suddenly paused. It was because he heard people's voices from the bottom. Dowook looked down the railing and sent down the light from the flashlight on his head.
"Who's there?"
Five or six people who were going down to the fourth floor raised their heads up. Dowook shouted loudly.
"Stop! I'm from the fire station!"
"Fire station? Firefighter! The building is shaking and stuff right now!"
"You can't move downstairs, that’s where the fire is! Evacuation is in the direction of the annex on the 5th floor. Come up here!"
"Fire? There's a fire here, too?"
Dowook, who saw them change directions, told Lee Ji-seok.
"I'll go up and guide people this way. Please guide them to the annex."
After completing the mission division, Dowook ran towards the concert hall.
When he arrived on the sixth floor, he saw people in panic attached to the window of the hallway.
Inside, only the fire of the building located beyond was seen, and there was no fire coming in from just below.
Dowook raised his voice so that even the people far away could hear it.
"Everyone! You have to evacuate now! Go down in this direction and follow the firemen's instructions!"
HIs throat had already become sore because he was not usually the type to shout. Dowook confirmed the movement of people and pushed the door to the entrance on the sixth floor of the concert hall.
Bang!
The entire performance hall calmed down at once as the sweat-covered Dowook stormed into the door.
Even if one roughly glanced around, there were at least 300 people.
Although it was a volunteer outfit, only the mark was slightly different, so they all seemed to be aware of the seriousness of the sudden appearance of a person carrying an emergency bag on his shoulder.
Dowook tried to explain directly to the audience watching him with anxious eyes, but saw a microphone on the stage.
"Is that working?"
Under the stage, the staff wearing headsets nodded.
He went up quickly and put the microphone to his mouth.
"There is currently a fire on the first floor of this building. Do not go down to the main building because toxic smoke is rising."
The murmur spread in all directions.
"If you go to the escalator on the 6th floor, there is a firefighter who is guiding the evacuation route toward the annex. Please move calmly. We’ll start evacuating from the front seat."
While the surprised audience began to move, Dowook once again announced the evacuation route through the microphone.
Bzzzt.
-Captain. This is the field command center. Did you enter?
Dowook responded right away.
"I'm in the concert hall."
-I'm Lee Ik-hyun, a firefighter who went for the fire inspection to Ahyeon Building. There is a facility that allows full broadcasting in the broadcasting control room of the concert hall. Evacuation information can also be announced to those who may not know.
It was news. Dowook, who checked the control room located at the rear of the audience's seat and at the location of the 8th floor, immediately moved.
As he was running up in the opposite direction to those who were evacuating, he saw people urgently walking out of the control room.
"Sir! What happened? You must know something because we can't contact the outside at all.”
Looking at the staff pass on his neck, he was the CP and chief producer of the cable broadcasting station. Dowook focused on the mission to evacuate rather than explaining the situation.
"I need to inform the entire building. Can you help me?"
"Of course. PD Yoon take all the remaining staff out. Sound! There's no time to pack the equipment! Just go down! I've got fire insurance!”
The CP opened the control room door and sat in the central console. After raising the connection button, he beckoned to Dowook.
"You can speak."
Dowook put his mouth to the microphone and started an evacuation route announcement throughout the building.
"……You should never go to the first floor of the main building. The evacuation route is to the annex on the 5th floor. It's the end of the long corridor with a food court."
He put down the mic and gestured to the CP to evacuate.
When he left the control room, he could see that many of the audience had escaped.
"I think it's done in time."’
He’d done everything he could with this much. It was the moment when a little sense of accomplishment and relief settled in a corner of his mind.
Boom!
The building vibrated. The floor was vibrating enough to shake greatly, so Dowook lost his balance and collapsed forward.
He rolled several stairs and struck his shoulders on the railing of the audience seat.
‘Ouch’
The shock of colliding with the floor came, but for Dowook more problems occurred so his mind instantly cleared.
All the lights on the ceiling went out at once. The entire building was blacked out.
Bzzzt.
-Flashover occurred on the first floor. The underground combustion point continues to supply heat. The flames spread to the second floor.
Screaming from all over the place told him of the fear felt by the evacuating people.
Darkness. A situation where vision was not properly secured.
Signs of warning that human casualties could grow uncontrollably if great chaos came during evacuation made Dowook’s body numb.
Dowook quickly got up and lit the lantern at the entrance on the sixth floor.
"The flames are still on the second floor! Turn on your cell phone flashlight and move!”
Dowook, who turned his head, reached out to the CP, who had fallen like him.
"Are you okay?"
"It's okay, it's okay."
"Hurry up and go down."
Dowook confirmed that cell phone lights came out from here and there and that the view of the entrance to the sixth floor was secured, and turned the lantern to the concert hall.
He searched for anyone who couldn't get out and pressed the radio transmission button.
"Team leader, will this quake arrive again?"
Bzzzt.
-It will continue until the underground combustion point is overpowered. Each time, the building's own fire protection system will not last and the floor where fires spread will increase.
The 3rd and 4th floors. In the worst case, they had to get out of here before there were 2 quakes.
"What about those who couldn't come out from other floors?"
-Leave the unavoidable survivors to the latecomers. We're almost there.
After walking slowly down from the control room and checking that there were no people inside, He left the entrance on the sixth floor.
Bzzzt.
"Currently on the 6th floor, the people here are almost completely evacuated."
While reporting the progress and walking on the escalator, the door of the emergency exit across the hallway suddenly opened.
"Daewon-nim!" [T/N: Daewon can refer to a member of a group. It’s used as a descriptor for firefighters, paramedics or volunteer workers. In this case it means a paramedic]
Dowook’s attention turned to the urgent call.
"Someone got hurt!"
"What?"
As he ran to the emergency exit, he saw a sweaty young man in his early 20s.
"Where is the injured person?”
He opened his mouth while breathing roughly with his hands on both knees as if he had come up with difficulty.
"At the gym on the 4th floor. Seon-ah and I helped him out since he was stuck under some equipment, but he lost consciousness.”
Dowook turned on the walkie-talkie right away.
"Found a patient. 4th floor. We'll move."
When he went down the emergency exit and opened the door on the fourth floor, he could feel the smell of burning, unlike upstairs, piercing the tip of his nose.
"Here, here."
He ran down the dark hallway relying on the lantern lights. A while later, he saw a sign leading to the gym.
"Seon-ah! Lim-Seon-ah! Daewon-nim is here!”
A woman in her early 20s, who had her cell phone’s flashlight pointed to the fallen man next to her, turned her head to the young man's voice.
"Jin-gu…"
Dowook sat right next to them and checked the breathing of the man.
The shallow and slow inhalation meant a lack of oxygen in the brain. There was no visible trauma, and the pulse was normal.
He asked the two, taking off the emergency bag he was carrying on his shoulders.
"Did you say he was conscious when you discovered him?”
"Yes. He got stuck in there and kept shouting for help."
He found a respirator, put it over the man’s mouth, and attached the device to check oxygen saturation on his finger.
When he looked at the fitness device that fell while squeezing the airbag, his stomach and chest seemed to have been under pressure.
There were traces of using a dumbbell rod as a lever along with a piece of equipment that looked considerable in weight, so Dowook had no choice but to look at the young man called Jin-gu again.
Evacuation broadcasts and continuous explosions. It would have been a chaotic situation, but this was a pretty good response.
"Is this person okay?"
"He lost consciousness because he couldn't supply oxygen to his brain temporarily. If this figure exceeds 95%, he’ll wake up soon."
Dowook spoke of the patient's condition in detail and stopped because he thought the young man's face looked very familiar.
"Huh?"
It's the same as Han Min-gyu's. Dowook asked.
"Do you happen to know Team Leader Han Min-gyu?"
"Huh? He's my dad."
As expected, it was as he heard from Lee Ji-seok. There was a reason for responding so calmly to this situation.
"Ugh…"
The man opened his eyes at the continuous oxygen supply. Dowook took off the respirator and asked.
"Patient, are you awake?"
Dowook, who confirmed the nodding man was awake, touched his chest. The ribs were not broken.
"You may be in pain, but if you don't move right now, you can choke on the thick smoke."
The patient, who was trying to raise his upper body, groaned.
"My back… It hurts so much."
When he sat down and took off the jacket, it was observed that the patient's shoulder muscles were convulsing. The patient only mentioned his back, but there was a problem with his biceps and shoulder bones as well.
Dowook put his hand on the man's shoulder.
"I'll just apply pressure on you with a bandage."
An 8-way bandage method firmly fixed the collarbone in place. First aid that he didn't remember unfolded familiarly in his hands.
The man, who groaned several times while wearing a bandage on his armpits and neck, looked a little better and looked at Dowook.
"Thank you."
"It’s thanks to these two who found the patient and reported it."
"Thank you both. I almost got in trouble because the shoulder press suddenly collapsed.”
Bzzzt.
-Captain. We're from the Yongsan Support Team. I checked that people are coming out to the shopping mall. Where are you now?
A question from the walkie-talkie. Dowook answered right away.
"The gym on the 4th floor. Emergency measures for one patient are over."
Dowook glanced at the man wearing his jacket again and continued.
"It looks like we can move by ourselves, so we'll evacuate together."
Thank you for your hard work. See you in the middle.
"Did you all hear that? Let's move."
Dowook led the two college students and health trainer to begin evacuation.
When he came out of the hallway, he only spent a moment for emergency measures, but he felt that the smoke on the fourth floor had thickened.
"Oh, it's hurting my eyes."
"Crouch down and cover your mouth with clothes. At times like this, clean air is 60cm below."
Lim Seon-ah coughed and asked back.
"Who? Your dad?"
"Yeah."
Dowook took the lead and put his hand on the door leading to the emergency exit.
‘Huh?’
The heat from the doorknob. Dowook hesitated. It was a strange thing. The surface of the metal should be cold. It was not like there was a fire inside…….
‘Damn!’
Dowook cried out to the three following him.
"Move back! Duck!"
Bang!
Even before moving a few steps, the door flew away and stuck into the wall. At the same time, the building vibrated once.
Dowook, who threw himself into the hallway, witnessed a tremendous heat rising up from the bottom of the emergency exit and burst out in cold sweat.
The flames had arrived right below them.
Dowook calmed his heart and turned back.
"Are you all okay?"
Three people nodded their heads.
Bzzzt.
-Captain Park Dowook. How's the situation?
It was Han Min-gyu's radio. Dowook answered calmly.
"There was an explosion, but I endured it safely. In a flashover situation, the fire seems to run up the emergency exit."
-The chimney phenomenon seems to be flocking to the emergency exit. Hurry up and evacuate.
"Oh, the team leader's son is here with me. Fortunately, I got to a patient on time due to your son's rescue."
-What? That punk…….
There was a brief silence from the walkie-talkie.
-Please evacuate safely.
"See you outside."
When his father's heavy worries were conveyed by radio, Han Jin-gu, who was in the back, also looked solemn.
Dowook got up and pointed to the direction of the escalator.
"Emergency stairs won't work. The smoke keeps gathering. We’ll go up the center."
When they arrived at the central escalator and looked down, they could see that black smoke and hot heat were expanding.
‘It's hot. But it's still on the third floor. Let's hurry up and avoid it.’
They hurried up the escalator. When he arrived on the fifth floor, Lee Ji-seok welcomed Dowook.
"Doctor!"
"Are you done evacuating people?"
"Yes. There were no more people coming out this way."
"Let's go out right away."
It was when they entered the 5th floor of the annex, on the route they first entered.
Bzzzt.
-We're from the Yongsan Support Team. On the third floor of the shopping mall, but it's impossible to secure a view here. We have secured two survivors who have fallen while searching for others, and two members are going down.
Unexpected news. Dowook immediately asked on the walkie-talkie.
"What do you mean you can't see the 3rd floor of the shopping mall?"
– Smoke is flowing into the ventilation port and the passageway near the main building. The smoke facilities seem to have been completely destroyed by the explosion earlier. Additional rescue teams are entering, so please evacuate to a smoke-free place for now. It's a suicide to come down here without an oxygen tank.
The smoke filling the escape path was like saying that they were isolated.
Boooom一!
The fourth big vibration came.
Sign that the fourth floor was pierced by fire.
The body began to feel that the thick smoke was coming in from everywhere in an instant.
