'My hands were shaking': Seoul firefighters save premature baby born in ambulance

An urgent call came in to the Mangwoo 119 Safety Center of Seoul's Jungnang Fire Station at around 9:40 p.m. on Aug. 1. A man in his 30s was on the line, saying his pregnant wife had started bleeding and her contractions were intensifying as they drove to the hospital — but traffic on the Bukbu Arterial Road had brought them to a standstill. He needed help.

Firefighters Lee Seung-min (32, paramedic team leader), Lee Si-seong (30, paramedic) and Kim Yeong-jin (34, mobile unit member) rushed to the scene in an ambulance. When they arrived, the woman in the passenger seat was in continuous pain from contractions. Sensing an emergency, the crew switched on the siren and headed for the obstetrics clinic the patient regularly visited. "The navigation showed it would take 20 to 25 minutes, but I thought if we pushed it we could get there in 15, so we turned on the siren and set off in a hurry," Kim said.

The contractions grew stronger and the intervals between them shortened rapidly. "I think the baby is coming — my stomach hurts so much," the mother said. When the crew checked, the baby's head was already visible. Concluding they could not make it to the hospital in time, they pulled over to the shoulder and decided to assist with the delivery inside the ambulance.

"We receive training on delivery situations as part of our paramedic education, but when it actually happened I was very nervous," Lee Seung-min recalled. "First, I got on a video call with a medical director from the Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, checked the mother's condition and assisted with the delivery following the instructions."

"My hands were shaking as the baby came out a few minutes after the contractions began," Lee Si-seong said. "The baby was born with the amniotic sac intact, so I carefully cut it open with a scalpel. The team leader and I cut the umbilical cord together." It was around 10:15 p.m. The baby arrived two months early at 31 weeks, weighing 1.5 kilograms — about half the weight of a typical newborn.

But the baby was not breathing. "It's important for a newborn to cry, but five minutes passed and there was no cry," Lee Seung-min said. "The medical director told us that if the baby still wasn't crying after five minutes, we should treat it as cardiac arrest and begin CPR — so we started immediately."

Lee Si-seong performed the CPR. "Because the baby was so small, I couldn't use the adult method — instead I used both thumbs to compress the chest three times, then gave one breath of oxygen, and repeated that cycle," Lee Si-seong explained. "After about five minutes of CPR we reached the hospital. As we were moving the mother and baby from the ambulance to the delivery room, the baby finally cried."

In the chaos, the crew had not even had a chance to ask the baby's nickname. Lee Si-seong's desperate plea during CPR — "Baby, please live" — later went viral on news outlets and social media.

The moment the baby's cry was heard, Lee Si-seong said the words came out before he could think: "Oh, it's crying. It's crying. The baby is crying. It's alive. Let's go see your mom."

After the roughly 40 tense minutes, the three recalled feeling a wave of relief that both the baby and the mother had survived. "I was genuinely very nervous, but I kept telling myself inwardly to stay calm," Lee Si-seong said. "Above all, having such reliable teammates meant each of us could focus on our own role."

"After we safely handed the mother and baby over to the medical staff, we all felt joy and relief," Kim Yeong-jin said. "It felt deeply rewarding to know we had saved a life and protected the happiness of a family."

The crew admitted, however, that learning the baby had been admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit weighed on them. "We had done everything we could, but there was a corner of my mind worried about what might happen if the baby's prognosis wasn't good," Lee Seung-min said. "Then we found out the father had posted a message of thanks on the Seoul Metropolitan Government's website after the baby was discharged in good health, and we all felt relieved."

In the post, the father wrote: "Even in an unexpected delivery situation, you carefully monitored my child's condition throughout and calmly explained everything to me as the guardian, helping me feel at ease — I still remember that clearly. My child later received treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit and was discharged healthy about 50 days after birth." The father named his daughter born in the ambulance Yeo-jeong, using the characters for "cart" and "road."

The three firefighters have been working together as a team at the Mangwoo 119 Safety Center since July. The most senior of the three, Lee Seung-min, was originally a nurse. "Working as a nurse, I often encountered emergency patients in the ER and found myself wondering what kind of care they received before reaching the hospital — that naturally led me to think about becoming a paramedic," Lee Seung-min said. "Whenever a fire truck or ambulance passed by, I thought, 'I want to do that,' and I naturally started preparing for the fire service exam." Lee was appointed in 2024 and has been serving as a paramedic team leader since.

"I was satisfied as a nurse too, but working as a firefighter and being able to help people so directly is very rewarding," Lee Seung-min said. "In most jobs it's not easy to hear someone say thank you, but fortunately in this line of work many citizens express their gratitude, and that keeps me happy."

Kim Yeong-jin had been an ordinary office worker. Looking for something more fulfilling and better suited to who he was — a job where he could help others — he began dreaming of becoming a firefighter. "While working at the company, I suddenly remembered that my childhood dream had been to become a firefighter," Kim said. "I quit my job, started preparing for the fire service exam and passed in eight months." He added that the reality of the job had exceeded his expectations. "I genuinely tell people around me that I look forward to going to work," he said. Kim passed the firefighter exam in July last year and was assigned to the Mangwoo 119 Safety Center in April.

Lee Si-seong also switched to firefighting after working in a hospital setting. A childhood memory proved decisive. "When I was young, both my father and my mother were each taken by ambulance at different times," Lee Si-seong said. "The first time, when my father was transported, I was just curious. The second time, when my mother was transported, my curiosity grew into a real desire to become a paramedic. From then on I kept building toward that goal, and here I am." Lee has been working at the Mangwoo 119 Safety Center since July.

With one to three years of experience between them, all three said the delivery would be a formative experience for their careers. "Our seniors told us that assisting with a birth in an ambulance is something that might happen once in an entire career in the fire service," Lee Seung-min said. "They said this was an important experience and that they hoped it would give us even greater pride in being firefighters going forward."

The story drew wide media coverage and the three received an outpouring of congratulations. Yet all three were quick to downplay their role. "It wasn't because we were special or brave — it's what any firefighter would have done," they said.

Still, as rewarding as calls like this one can be, the crew said they also respond to calls that turn out not to be genuine emergencies. Kim Yeong-jin recalled one such incident. "We received a report that someone had collapsed on the stairs of a commercial building and went to the scene," he said. "There was no response, so we shook the person awake — and they suddenly jumped up, started swearing and tried to throw a punch. It turned out they had been lying there drunk." Kim said such unnecessary calls are a real concern. "Sometimes these responses mean that people who genuinely need emergency care can't get through to 119."

Even when they face dangerous situations, firefighters remain a steady presence at the side of the public.

"What counts as an emergency can vary from person to person, and for ordinary citizens it can genuinely be hard to judge," Lee Seung-min said. "Determining whether a situation is an emergency is also part of our job, so if anyone is hesitating about whether to call 119, please don't — call us anytime."

"We just did what we always do, and it's not only the three of us standing by citizens — across the country, countless 119 crew members are on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," Lee Seung-min added. "We hope you'll trust us and keep showing us the same support you always have."

The Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters currently has a workforce of more than 7,600 firefighting personnel, including 1,080 paramedics.