Nearly 1,400 firefighters assaulted by patients they rescued over past 5 years

Nearly 1,400 firefighters have been assaulted by intoxicated patients and others over the past five years, according to newly released data.

People Power Party lawmaker Kang Myung-gu of the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee obtained data from the National Fire Agency showing that 1,399 assaults on emergency medical technicians were recorded from 2021 through June of this year.

Breaking the figures down by year, there were 248 cases in 2021, 248 in 2022, 249 in 2023, 269 in 2024 and 198 last year, with 148 cases recorded through June of this year — an annual average of 254 incidents.

Alcohol was the leading cause, accounting for 1,180 cases, or 84.3 percent of the total. Mental illness was cited in 79 cases (5.6 percent), with other reasons making up the remaining 140 cases (10.0 percent).

In one recent case, a firefighter in Seoul was kicked in the head, chest and abdomen on March 14 while disinfecting a patient to take a blood sugar reading, and was diagnosed with injuries requiring at least four weeks of recovery.

In an earlier case in North Jeolla Province on April 2, 2018, a senior firefighter was struck in the head five times while transporting an intoxicated person to a hospital. The firefighter was admitted to intensive care with a brain hemorrhage, pulmonary edema and heart failure, and died within a month of the incident.

"It seems necessary to make improvements such as installing protective barriers inside ambulances," Kang said. "We also need measures to assess the risk of violence before transporting a patient, and when the risk is high, to respond alongside police or reinforce the number of personnel dispatched."

National Fire Agency Commissioner Choi Yong-cheol, appearing at the National Assembly's national audit of the Public Administration and Security Committee on Wednesday, said he "fully agreed." Choi also said the agency would expand its critical emergency patient transport system nationwide to improve dispatch conditions, and pledged to minimize damage from wildfires in the coming autumn and winter seasons through weather forecasting and fire-spread analysis. He added that the agency would move quickly to deploy advanced technologies, including physical AI, at emergency scenes, led by a dedicated AI division.