'Drunk driving should not be treated as normal,' says daughter of Japanese tourist killed in Seoul

Mayumi sits in a surgical ward staring blankly into the distance at the National Medical Center in central Seoul, last November. Illustration by Shin Dong-jun

“Your mother has passed away.”

The words flickered on the smartphone screen handed to Mayumi (pseudonym) by a member of the medical staff. Lying in a hospital bed, Mayumi, 39, stared blankly at the message.

Familiar words, yet almost impossible to grasp, continued to appear through a translation app. There, lying in a bed in the emergency room of the National Medical Center in Seoul, sometime after 11:22 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2025, Mayumi was told the cause of her mother’s death: traumatic shock.

She knew it was going to be bad. She had heard the ominous sounds of doctors rushing past and medical equipment being moved frantically around her. But somehow, perhaps wistfully, Mayumi still believed her mother would survive. Just an hour earlier, they had been walking casually down the street together, side by side.

The news of her death rang hollow and unreal — until the tears came, followed by uncontrollable sobs.

When Mayumi saw her mother, she could still feel warmth in Geiko’s (pseudonym) body. A few leaves were still caught in her hair, and her expressionless face looked almost peaceful. What had begun as a mother-daughter trip ended in a permanent farewell in Korea — in a matter of seconds.

The sixth trip that ended in tragedy

For the mother and daughter, Korea was already familiar ground. Geiko, Mayumi’s mother, had long loved Korean dramas, food and cosmetics, and the two had visited the country five times since October 2023. Last year alone, they came three times.

Their trips often followed the same quiet routine: booking a place to stay near Myeong-dong or Dongdaemun, eating at familiar restaurants and visiting beauty clinics. At some restaurants, staff had even begun to recognize the Japanese mother and daughter.

The trip in November was their sixth. This time, they wanted to change the routine and visit a filming location from a drama Geiko had loved.

“I don’t know the exact title. But my mother said she really wanted to go to Naksan Park, where the drama was filmed. I remember how happy and excited she looked,” Mayumi recalled in a written interview with the Hankook Ilbo.

Naksan Park was also one of the locations featured in “KPop Demon Hunters.” So the mother and daughter chose the park as the final stop on the first day of their trip.

A drunk driver’s vehicle speeds toward Geiko and Mayumi as they head to Naksan Park in Jongno District, Seoul, last November. Illustration by Shin Dong-jun

By the time they finished shopping, the sky had grown dark. The cool autumn breeze made the walk feel almost magical as they set off from Heunginjimun Park, planning to follow the trail along the old city wall and take in Seoul’s night view.

Soon after they began walking, they reached a spot just across the street from the wall. The pedestrian light turned green. Mayumi was walking about a meter ahead of her mother, talking as they crossed.

Then came the crash.

A tremendous force hit Mayumi. Her body was flung onto the asphalt, and within moments, blood was running down her face.

“I remember everything — the impact, the dense sound of my face striking the road, and the pain that followed,” she said.

A nearby Korean woman rushed to her side, shouting frantically.

“Mom,” Mayumi murmured, trying to see whether her mother was all right. But the pain was so excruciating that she could not even turn her head in the opposite direction.

As she was lifted into an ambulance, Mayumi barely managed to move her fingers, open a translation app and type a short message:

“Please take me to my mother.”

The driver appears for a pretrial detention hearing at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho District, Seoul, last November. Korea Times photo by Ha Sang-yoon

A mother lost to drunk driving

A police investigation began the next day when Sgt. Lee Seung-bin of the traffic investigation team at Hyehwa Police Station came to Mayumi’s hospital room. The 41-year-old Japanese-speaking officer carefully began briefing her on what had happened, but Mayumi already knew much of it. She had spent the night listening to the news.

“Drunk driving.”

That was how media reports explained the crash. The driver’s blood alcohol concentration stood at 0.212 percent, a level that would typically require drinking more than one and a half bottles of soju.

At first, fury and disbelief ran through her veins. Mayumi could not accept any of it. Why would someone get behind the wheel after drinking that much? And why was it her mother who had to pay the price?

“She asked many questions about how the investigation would proceed and what kind of punishment the driver would face,” Sgt. Lee recalled of his visit to her hospital room.

Her anger only deepened when her legal representative explained what punishment might look like under Korean law. Although a life sentence was theoretically possible, the Supreme Court’s sentencing guidelines recommend two to five years in prison in ordinary cases, or four to eight years when aggravating factors are present.

“This is how the system works in Korea,” said Chae Jun-byeong, Mayumi’s legal representative.

“One man’s drunk driving took a life and shattered the lives of the victim’s family. Yet the criminal punishment for such an offense falls far short of the harm it causes.”

Choi, a nurse, looks toward a ward at the National Medical Center in central Seoul, May 7. Korea Times photo by Heo Yoo-jung

The people who stayed by her side

Mayumi wanted to go home immediately. But her injuries involving fractures to six ribs, her sternum and her nasal bone left her no choice but to undergo surgery and have her wounds stitched.

Throughout the procedure, the image of her mother smiling kept coming back to her.

“For the first three days, she cried almost constantly,” said Choi, 31, a nurse in the surgical ward. Medical staff checked on her every 30 minutes to offer emotional support.

Son Soo-yeon, a 56-year-old nursing assistant whose own daughter is around Mayumi’s age, felt especially drawn to her. For days, she held Mayumi’s hand and gently patted her back whenever she cried. There was little need for language between them.

“She stayed beside me like my own mother,” Mayumi said. “I was scared, alone in an unfamiliar country, surrounded by unfamiliar people and struggling to communicate. But because of them, I was able to hold on.”

Support came from outside the hospital as well, one person at a time. An employee at a store Mayumi and Geiko had frequented brought supplies for her hospital stay and helped with translation. The director of a beauty clinic they knew and the owner of a restaurant they often visited also came to see her.

In the middle of shock and grief, Mayumi said, those familiar faces were a rare comfort.

But perhaps the deepest support came from Sgt. Lee, who often sent Mayumi messages of encouragement. When the hearse carrying Geiko’s body headed to the airport, Lee personally escorted it, ensuring that her final journey was not made alone.

Nearly 20 days passed before Mayumi was finally able to leave Korea. As they said goodbye, Son typed a message into a translation app.

“Please find the strength to overcome this pain. And please do not hate Korea too much.”

Then she pulled Mayumi into a hug.

At the airport, Mayumi took a photo with Sgt. Lee.

“I told her I hoped she would recover from the painful memories and live happily,” Lee recalled, his eyes slightly red.

Sgt. Lee Seung-bin stands outside the office of the traffic investigation team at Hyehwa Police Station in Jongno District, Seoul, May 8. Korea Times photo by Heo Yoo-jeong

'Drunk driving should not be treated as normal'

In April, the Seoul Central District Court held the final hearing for the driver responsible for the crash. Prosecutors requested a seven-year prison sentence.

“The damage suffered by the bereaved family cannot be restored through financial compensation of any kind,” prosecutors said. “As the victims were Japanese nationals, the case also attracted attention in the Japanese media, with reports repeatedly raising concerns over Korea’s low sentencing levels.”

In his final statement, the driver bowed his head in apology.

“Every time I think about how my wrongdoing turned the family trip into a tragedy, my heart feels as if it is being torn apart,” he said. “I will give up alcohol completely and live with the utmost responsibility in all my actions, including driving.”

For Mayumi, the feelings remain tangled. She is still haunted by the horrific memories and afraid to return to Korea, a country that had once been one of her favorite places to visit.

Still, she said she wants to come back someday — to thank those who stood by her in her darkest moments, and to face the crash site again with courage.

“I still hold on to the memories I shared with my mother. When I see a mother and daughter walking happily together, my eyes well up,” Mayumi said.

“I am not asking Korean people to remember my mother. But I am asking them to look at a society where drunk driving is treated as routine, and to realize how unnatural that is.”

This article from the Hankookilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.