A young worker intervened during a knife attack at a large commercial facility in Incheon by throwing a chair at the assailant, preventing further harm. As the attacker attempted to ascend to the fourth floor where a movie theater is located, the worker turned back to confront him, and other citizens joined in to subdue the attacker.
According to Yonhap News, at around 1:40 p.m. on October 13, a 59-year-old man, identified as A, wielded a knife at random individuals in the Guwol-dong area of Incheon before being restrained by citizens. A key figure in this intervention was 23-year-old Shin Jung-hyun.
Shin was heading to the fourth-floor movie theater with his girlfriend when he initially mistook the sounds of children playing for harmless noise. However, he soon heard screams of 'Help!' and 'Run!' and spotted A brandishing a knife.
At the time, A was moving against the escalator's flow toward the fourth floor. Although Shin initially considered fleeing, he changed his mind upon realizing that many children and women were present in the area.
Shin recounted, 'I thought if this man reached the fourth floor, there would be no one to stop him, and everyone would be in danger.' He picked up a backless chair nearby and threw it at A as he approached the escalator railing. The chair struck A, causing him to fall, and he then moved down the escalator toward the third floor.
Shin shouted to citizens below to hold A down, and they managed to subdue him with the chair until police arrived to arrest him.
Shin later said, 'I learned from the news that this man was attacking everyone he saw. If he had made it to the fourth floor, we might not have made it out safely.' He added, 'There were many young children, but I acted because I wanted to survive. I'm relieved that we could prevent a greater tragedy.'
* This article has been translated by AI.
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