The Korean Fire Chief Whose Heart Was Restarted by the Son He Taught CPR

Featured photo: Seoul firefighters lead a CPR flash mob on the court at a pro basketball game in Seoul, December 2014. Photo: Choi Kwang-mo / Seoul Metropolitan Fire and Disaster Headquarters, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lee Jong-ok, 58, chief of the Gimje Fire Station in North Jeolla Province, has spent his life saving other people. When he went into cardiac arrest while running, the person pressing on his chest wasn’t a paramedic. It was his 27-year-old son, doing the CPR his father had taught him himself. That same month, in the same province, a middle school boy pressed on his collapsed father’s chest for seven minutes.

A firefighter’s heart stopped twice on a park track

Around 9 p.m. on October 11, Chief Lee was running with his son at Mohyeon Park in Iksan, North Jeolla, when he suddenly collapsed (Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo, November 6, citing the Jeonbuk Fire Headquarters). His son called 119, Korea’s emergency number for both fire and ambulance, like 911 in the U.S., and started chest compressions right away. While the 119 emergency dispatch center coached him over the phone, the son kept going for about five minutes without stopping, until his father made a sound, “Ah,” and responded (Segye Ilbo, Hankyoreh). The ambulance crew arrived five minutes after the call and found that his pulse had come back.

The danger came back once more. Seven minutes after the crew arrived, his heart stopped again, and the paramedics got it beating again in five minutes with CPR and a defibrillator. After a coronary intervention to open his blocked heart arteries and intensive care at Wonkwang University Hospital, he went back to his job as fire chief on November 2, 22 days after he collapsed (Chosun Ilbo).

“In my whole life as a firefighter I’ve saved countless lives, but I never imagined my own son would be the one to save mine,” Chief Lee said (Seoul Shinmun, Chosun Ilbo). The head of the Jeonbuk Fire Headquarters called it a case where “the CPR a father taught his son came back to save the father’s life” (Seoul Shinmun). The comments saw the same thing. The most-liked comment on the KBS story (40 likes): “Like father, like son. Well done, son.” The top comment on the Hankyoreh story (24 likes): “The son brought back the good the father gave out.”

Also read: Seoul Office Workers Who Believed in KOSPI 9,000 Now Ask a 'Beggar Room' for Permission to Buy Coffee

Seven minutes from a boy who couldn’t say his address

A week later, at 7:51 p.m. on October 18, a father in his 40s collapsed in an apartment in Deokjin-gu, Jeonju, after struggling to breathe. His middle-school son called 119, but he panicked so badly he couldn’t say the apartment’s building and unit number. The dispatcher reached the boy’s mother separately, got the address and the front door code, and passed them to the ambulance crew (Segye Ilbo, November 6).

Meanwhile the father lost consciousness and his heart stopped. The boy remembered the chest compressions he had learned in a fire safety class at school (MBC, November 3), and the 119 dispatch center switched to a video call, showing him with pictures and video how fast and how to press. The ambulance arrived at 7:58 p.m., seven minutes after the call, and the crew followed with a defibrillator, an airway and medication. The father’s heart started beating again (Yonhap News, Segye Ilbo).

A boy too scared to even say his own address kept his hands moving for seven minutes, scared the whole time. The most-liked comment on the Yonhap story (340 likes) read: “Even adults would panic in that situation. What an admirable middle schooler.”

Hearts usually stop at home, and the person next to you is family

Numbers show why both scenes are rare. In the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s survey of sudden cardiac arrest for the first half of 2025, patients who got CPR from a bystander survived at a rate of 15.3%, compared with 5.6% for those who didn’t. That’s a 2.7-fold difference (Medical World News, October 2, citing KDCA data).

But of the 16,045 cardiac arrests in the survey, 47.0% happened at home, and patients who collapsed at home survived at 6.1%, less than half the rate in public places (15.6%) (same article). When a heart stops at home, the person next to you is usually family. That is exactly where the middle schooler in Jeonju was.

The province where both sons live happens to be one of the places in Korea where CPR is least common. In the first half of 2025, the bystander CPR rate in North Jeolla was 22.5%, more than 10 points below the national average of 32.9% and the fourth lowest after South Jeolla, Busan and Gwangju. Its cardiac arrest survival rate over the same period was 8.4%, just over half of Seoul’s 14.9% (Jeonbuk Domin Ilbo, October 5). In a place where seven or eight of every ten people who collapse get no one’s hands on them before the ambulance arrives, two sons put their hands down within a single month.

The lesson a firefighter gave at home

November 9 is Fire Service Day in Korea. Every year the ceremony talks about firefighters in the flames and at rescue scenes. But this fall in North Jeolla, what held on to one firefighter’s life was a lesson he gave his son not on the job, but at home. One comment under the Hankyoreh story read: “May your heart beat strong for as long as all the hearts you’ve saved.”

For a lifetime he pressed on other people’s chests. This time, the hands pressing on his were the ones he had taught.

Sources

• Gimje fire chief (Jeonbuk Fire Headquarters announcement, November 6, 2026): Dong-A Ilbo, Chosun Ilbo, Seoul Shinmun, Hankyoreh, KBS
• Both cases together: Segye Ilbo, November 6, 2026
• Jeonju middle schooler: Yonhap News, November 3, 2026, MBC, November 3, 2026
• KDCA sudden cardiac arrest survey, first half of 2025 (data submitted to the National Assembly): Medical World News, October 2, 2026, Jeonbuk Domin Ilbo, October 5, 2026
• Comment like counts: Naver News, sorted by likes, checked early November 7, 2026 (KST)