The suspect of a fatal stabbing attends his questioning session before detention at the Gwangju District Court on May 7. [YONHAP]
The 17-year-old male survivor who was wounded while attempting to save a female student during a fatal stabbing in Gwangju is facing emotional distress due to the trauma, as well as the online hate and false accusations framing him as a coward.
A man surnamed Jang stabbed an unacquainted female student heading home and killed her in an open street in Gwangsan District in Gwangju at around 12:11 a.m. on May 5, according to police. The male student, who rushed to the site after hearing the victim scream, was subsequently attacked and injured by the offender.
“At first, I just thought that a couple was arguing,” the male student told the local news agency News1 in a phone interview on Sunday. “Then I heard [the girl] shouting for help. There wasn’t time to think; I just ran when I heard her scream.”
When he arrived, he found the Jang and the female student, with the latter collapsed on the ground and bleeding heavily.
Jang asked the male student to call emergency services, only to attack him with the knife when he attempted to do so. The teenager then reportedly suffered a deep wound to his hand while trying to fight off Jang with one hand while holding his phone in the other. He was also later stabbed twice in the neck.
Despite his serious injuries, the student managed to push Jang away, escape the scene and call an acquaintance to report that someone had been stabbed.
Although the female student was transported to a hospital, she was later pronounced dead. The male student underwent emergency surgery and survived. He is currently receiving treatment in Gwangju.
“She should have lived,” he said. “It’s just so devastating.”
He has since been suffering from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, freezing whenever strangers approach him unexpectedly, and guilt for not being able to save the other victim.
People pay condolences in Gwangju on May 7 at a site where a fatal stabbing took place. [YONHAP]
To make matters worse, in the days following the attack, he and his family members have endured malicious online comments about the incident.
“My son had chunks of flesh torn from his body and was stabbed in the neck. He was in real danger,” the survivor’s father told the news agency. “I asked him why he would run into such a dangerous situation and told him never to do something like that again. But my son replied, ‘Dad, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?’”
The father said it was especially painful to see online comments falsely accusing his son of running away and suffering only minor injuries. “It shattered me to see people talk as if he had fled the scene.”
“We’re not asking people to view him as a hero,” the father added. “We just want people to understand that what my son did was not wrong. He should not have to hide that he risked his life trying to save someone else. I only hope that he can continue to live with confidence instead of shrinking back because of this.”
Police officers arrest a suspect of fatal stabbing in Gwangju on May 5. [YONHAP]
Jang immediately fled the scene after the attack but was arrested by police roughly 11 hours later.
During questioning, he reportedly told investigators that he had been contemplating suicide because “life was not fun anymore.”
Jang was found not to meet the criteria for psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder after undergoing psychological evaluations and interviews with profilers, according to police.
He has been arrested on charges of murder and attempted murder. Under Korea’s public disclosure rules for violent crime suspects, his identity will be disclosed on Thursday.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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