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The mother of a South Korean exchange student who died in 2001 when he and a Japanese man tried to rescue another man after he fell onto the tracks at JR Shin-Okubo Station attended an event in her son’s honor at the station on Sunday.
At the time, Lee Su Hyon, 26, was studying at a Japanese language school. He and Shiro Sekine, a 47-year-old Japanese photographer from Yokohama tried to rescue a drunken man who had fallen onto the tracks at the station on Jan 26, 2001. All three, who did not know each other, died.
Soon after, a fund was set up in South Korea, using condolence money given to Lee's parents from people across Japan and donations from his parents, to provide financial aid to foreign students from Asia. So far, the fund has helped 960 students, Lee’s mother, Shin Yoon-chan, said Sunday after she and JR officials observed a moment of silence for the three people killed at a memorial at the station.
© Japan Today
15 Comments
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sensei258
Sad and honor worthy at the same time. My only question why now if it was 19 years ago?
sensei258
What did you expect them to do, judge his moral character when they only had seconds?
ksteer
Now?? This happened 19 years ago... Pretty much no where had platform barriers.
oldman_13
RIP, he died a true hero.
Wolfpack
It takes tremendous courage and quick thinking to do what these two men did. A brave and selfless act deserving of respect.
Mirai Hayashi
Sad that two people lost their lives trying to save some stupid irresponsible dunktard
Strangerland
I remember this when it happened. It was a powerful moment. These two guys gave their lives for someone they never knew. So brave (and sad).
redelmotalking
Respect to both of them, mother and son. She must also be a good person, to have raised him to act in such a selfless way.
Badge213
A couple of stations on the Yamanote Line have barriers, including the current Shin-Okubo station (since 2013), Takadanobaba just a stop over has barriers, Mejiro and Ikebukuro for example on the Yamanote Line on that end all have barriers on the Yamanote Line.
The result of the incident in 2001 resulted in JR installing emergency train stop buttons you see on platforms today, were much harder to see or non existent in 2001, and ditches in the platform, plus other safety mechanisms.
WA4TKG
Cant say I would do that for a drunk, if a train was coming, now they all perished.
Badge213
*Upon further research, most Yamanote Line platforms have waist high platform doors now, with the rest being fitted in by March 2020 and near the end of 2020 for the case of Shinjuku Station, which is undergoing major renovations.
KariHaruka
@badge213
Interesting... It's been a while since I've used the Yamanote Line other than for getting on/off at Shinjuku Station and occasionally other stations. So I guess that there's a mixture of those stations (at the time) didn't have barriers installed and/or I'm just not paying enough attention (which is maybe kinda worrying).
KariHaruka
You won't find platform barriers at any station along the Yamanote Line. Or at any train station (in Japan and other parts of the world) for that matter. I've only ever seen barriers at subway stations and shinkansen tracks.
Patricia Yarrow
No platform barriers at Shin-Okubo station? Even after all the suicides and now this horrendous accident?