The ‘12.12: The Day’ Actor Shut the Gas Valves at an Explosion, Then Said “I’m Sorry”

Featured photo: Two LPG cylinders hooked up against the back wall of a building in Korea, the kind of tank Yoon Dae-yeol shut off (not the scene of the explosion). Photo: Mykim5902, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Actor Yoon Dae-yeol ran toward the sound of an explosion and shut two gas cylinders that had been left open. Then, when it made the news, he answered the praise with an apology. The biggest scene this actor from the film “12.12: The Day” has ever played happened where there was no camera.

I’ll be honest: I read this story and stayed happy about it for a long time. An actor who has held his corner of the stage and screen for nearly 20 years finally had his name in the headline of every newspaper in the country.

8:45 a.m., an explosion on a morning walk

Around 8:45 a.m. on October 27, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) exploded on the ground floor of a three-story commercial building in Majeon-dong, Geomdan-gu, in Incheon, the port city just west of Seoul. Workers were tearing out the interior of a closed shop, and four people in their 60s were taken to the hospital with burns to their faces and bodies (News1, Hankook Ilbo).

At that moment Yoon was out for a walk in the neighborhood. As soon as he heard the blast, he said, he “knew it was an accident” (JTBC). Outside the wrecked shop stood two LPG cylinders, the tall gas tanks that Korean restaurants and buildings without a city gas line keep outside, with their valves open. He shut both valves, then called 112 and 119, Korea’s police and fire emergency numbers (Dong-A Ilbo). He lives near the scene, so he already knew where the cylinders were (Korea Economic Daily).

That meant putting his hands on tanks that could still be leaking gas, right next to a building that had just exploded once. “I was scared, but someone had to do it,” he said (JTBC). Police said that “thanks to Mr. Yoon’s quick action, it did not turn into a major fire” (News1).

That clip had been played more than 1.66 million times on YouTube when I checked on November 6, 2026.

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Called a hero, he answered with an apology

The next day, when it came out that the “citizen” was the actor Yoon Dae-yeol, more than 20 outlets covered it, with “citizen hero” and “good Samaritan” in the headlines (Dong-A Ilbo, Hankook Ilbo, MBC). The first thing Yoon wrote on his own social media was about the people who got hurt: “The owner of the restaurant was badly injured. The three people who were working there were badly injured, too.”

Then he gave the credit to others. “There were people who got to the scene first, took care of the injured, controlled traffic and called it in. I only shut the gas cylinders behind the building because I was worried about a second accident,” he wrote. The next lines were these: “I’m so sorry and ashamed that I ended up in the news without meaning to. I’m also afraid I might distract from what this accident is really about” (News1, Korea Economic Daily).

“Nothing about this accident has been resolved yet, and no one has recovered,” he wrote, wishing the injured and their families a full recovery (News1). The man who stopped a second explosion was worried his name would push the victims out of the picture. That is the most lovable part of this whole story.

On November 2, the Incheon Seobu Police Station gave him a certificate of appreciation (Channel A).

The actor people remembered by scene, not by name

Yoon started acting in 2007 with the stage play “Offending the Audience” and spent years in theater before he began appearing on screen in 2014 (News1, Korea Economic Daily). Audiences remember him by his scenes before they remember his name. “12.12: The Day” (2023), which follows the nine hours of the December 12, 1979 military coup, drew more than 13 million moviegoers in Korea (about 13.12 million, per the Korean Film Council’s box office system).

Where to watch: In the U.S., “12.12: The Day” streams on Amazon Prime Video and Rakuten Viki, and free with ads on The Roku Channel and Plex (JustWatch, checked November 8, 2026).

He was also in “The Outlaws” (2017), the Ma Dong-seok (Don Lee) crime hit.

Where to watch: In the U.S., “The Outlaws” streams on Amazon Prime Video and free with ads on Tubi and Plex (JustWatch, checked November 8, 2026).

In the Disney+ series “The Murky Stream” (2025), he played Gae-chun (JTBC).

Where to watch: “The Murky Stream” is a Disney+ original; in the U.S. it streams on Disney+ and Hulu (JustWatch, checked November 8, 2026).

The comments wrote his next scene

Korean readers’ reactions point almost entirely one way. The most-liked comment (177 likes) on the Korea Economic Daily story was, “He did something you can’t do without real courage. I hope he becomes a big actor.” Under the Hankook Ilbo story, next to “There must have been fire after the explosion, and walking up to another gas cylinder to shut the valve takes enormous courage” (27 likes), came “Directors, please cast a good man like this” (16 likes). Under the JTBC story, someone posted a shorter demand: “Give him a lead role.” (Naver News comments, sorted by likes, checked November 6, 2026)

I already can’t wait for his next project. Whatever it is, audiences will now look at that face on screen and think of his name too. The actor who shut two gas cylinders at an explosion: Yoon Dae-yeol.

Sources

• Dong-A Ilbo, October 28, 2026: “The citizen hero who shut the valves at a gas explosion was actor Yoon Dae-yeol”
• Korea Economic Daily, October 28, 2026
• News1, October 29, 2026
• JTBC, October 29, 2026, JTBC News on YouTube (view count checked early November 6, 2026)
• Hankook Ilbo, October 29, 2026
• Channel A, November 3, 2026: “Actor Yoon Dae-yeol, who shut the gas cylinders at an explosion, receives police certificate of appreciation”
• Naver News comments (sorted by likes, checked early November 6, 2026): the Korea Economic Daily, Hankook Ilbo and JTBC stories above
• Where to watch: JustWatch U.S., checked November 8, 2026