"수백대 구급차 보내줬듯 이제는 우리가 나설 때"...대구 소방관이 최전선에서 겪은 코로나<br /><br />Paramedics transporting COVID-19 patients to hospitals have been on the frontlines of battling this outbreak and South Korea is recognizing their tireless work in the face of extreme adversity.<br />We wanted to hear from one... so we sent our Choi Jeong-yoon to Daegu, once South Korea's hardest-hit city,... to hear their story.<br />Check it out.<br />Catastrophic.<br />That’s how second-year paramedic Kim Soo-jung describes the COVID-19 crisis.<br />At the peak of the epidemic, more than 300 COVID-19 patients were being moved to hospitals every day across South Korea.<br />“Overall, it was a social disaster. The number of patients kept skyrocketing but Daegu didn’t have enough hospitals or ambulances to deal with all the people.”<br />Helping Daegu in its time of need were the huge number of firefighters who came in from all over the country.<br />More than 900 firefighters descended on the city and moved close to seven-and-a-half-thousand patients during the pandemic.<br />“Seeing hundreds of ambulances gathered in the same place for the first time and all the paramedics speaking different dialects from different regions was overwhelming. We only had one aim: to send patients to a safe environment.”<br />Gearing up was physically grueling.<br />She had to go through the so-called 5 steps: putting on her protective suit, pulling on her overshoes, wearing goggles, a mask and gloves.<br />"When you have all this stuff on, it's very hard to hear and see. Above all, as the day warmed up, the protective suit got so sweaty and stuffy.”<br />What helped her overcome those difficulties and focus on the task at hand was her sense of duty.<br />“Being a firefighter is about serving citizens and saving people in danger. That's the reason I decided to become a firefighter and that's what made me endure the discomfort.”<br />Daegu has now largely flattened the curve thanks to the hard work of medical staff, fire fighters and the city's citizens. With Seoul seeing another big community-based transmission, she says it's time for the country to pull together again.<br />She added the challenging times Daegu went through provided invaluable experience about how to systematically respond to the crisis.<br />Choi Jeong-yoon, Arirang News, Daegu.<br />
