Rotten Mango - #352: The Nurses Watch Him Bleed Out On The Operating Table Because The Doctor Went Home
Episode Date: April 27, 2024The first thing they feel is how stiff the table is underneath them… it feels so cold. Then, they open their eyes, and see a masked man staring straight at them holding a scalpel. The first insti...nct is to scream. To run. But that would be silly. They paid thousands of dollars for this surgery. Suddenly, their eyes start feeling heavy again. The room looks blurry and they start to feel like something heavy is sitting on their chest. The only comfort is knowing that they booked the best plastic surgeon in all of South Korea. It was a little strange that they had an opening for a surgery the same week… because wouldn’t his schedule be fully booked? If he’s that popular? And they could have sworn that he had 5 other surgeries scheduled for this very time slot… how could the doctor be in 5 operating rooms at once? But that’s why they’re called “ghost doctors.” You book a surgery with a top doctor, pay top dollar, only to have him walk out the room the second you are sedated. Then a strange man will come in and perform surgery. The man that worked the front desk? The medical salesman? The custodian? They can all be your doctor if they put on a white coat. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Hello, I'm back.
Okay, well, I don't think that you guys realized that I went anywhere, but just to fill you
in for the past two weeks, I don't know what happened, but I got really sick out of nowhere
and I thought maybe I just need to lay down for a day or two.
I'm going to recover.
It ended up lasting nearly two weeks.
I tried my best to keep up with the cases while I was in bed, but I just haven't been
able to get as much done
But no worries. I am back at a thousand percent. I feel so much better now
I am so ready to just dive back into so many different cases
I have a few really important ones coming to you guys very very soon
We're currently working on a case with a victim's family member
And there's there's just a lot of videos that were very passionate
that are gonna be posted very soon because we want them to be the best for you guys and for the case
and in the meantime, I didn't want to leave you guys without any videos
so I tried to get a little bit creative
I did try to film while I was really ill and it was just not gonna work
so this episode is gonna look a little bit different
this is actually two pre-filmed episodes that went live on a separate channel of mine
maybe like a year or so back but I don't think that many of you guys have seen it
but it's two separate cases we're covering in this video one about ghost
hospitals in South Korea now the wild thing about that is it's not a
paranormal case it is so much worse than it sounds. and then we have the case of the squid games actor's son. his son was found mysteriously dead in
the United States overseas and at the hospital these people keep knocking on
the door. turns out they're called body dealers and they come crawling in
begging the squid game actor can I have your son's body. so with that being said
we will be back on schedule on May 5th
with new episodes every Wednesdays and Sundays, audio and visual here on YouTube and wherever you
get your podcasts, but thank you guys for understanding and I promise I'm working so hard to make up for
the time that I was sick and let's get into it. Today we're talking about ghost doctors.
This is not some sort of weird urban legend of a doctor who died and now they just haunt
the operating room and they're standing in the corner bawling their eyes out and you
wake up from anesthesia and you're like, hey doc, just wondering why was there a random
surgeon just crying in the room and they're like, what surgeon? just wondering, why was there a random surgeon just crying in the room?
And they're like, what surgeon?
And then you start pissing yourself.
Like this is not one of those stories.
It's not about a doctor that never existed
but is listed for surgeries at the hospital
or like scalpels that magically go missing.
No, this is so much scarier.
It's honestly terrifying.
This happens in Korea, but it happens everywhere.
So like, don't get it twisted twisted this is not just a Korean thing.
Taehee Kwon or I guess Kwon Taehee, he was 24 years old. He's rushed to the
emergency room of the local hospital. Now the ER doctor, he was expecting him. He
had gotten a call from Taehee's plastic surgeon at around maybe like 11 30 p.m.
that night and this plastic surgeon is telling him listen
We're operating on this patient. He's 24 years old. He's got low blood pressure, but he's still conscious. He's still talking to us
I don't think that he's in critical condition, but just to be safe. We're gonna send him to your ER
We think maybe he needs a blood transfusion, but we're not really sure okay, so just be on the stand by now
The ER doctor obviously agrees and he's like waiting it's a slow day he's like
where's Taehee right Taehee arrives but when he steps foot I guess he didn't
even step foot when he was rolled into the ER everybody is confused everybody
starts frantically scrambling they're just panicked and they're doing
everything in their right minds to save this young man's life and
you're now you're confused. You're like wait the guy was conscious the guy was doing fine. What happened?
Well, that's what the ER doctor is asking. How could the plastic surgeon have been so calm on that phone?
None of this makes sense. First of all, Tae had lost all consciousness.
His heart had stopped beating for at least two minutes
and he was missing two-thirds of his entire blood supply in his body
what?
two-thirds of it. Can you guess how much that is?
Can you guess like in cups I guess or in gallons?
How much do you think an average 24 year old like 150 pound male has blood?
But it's about one and a half gallons of blood in the body and he
lost two-thirds of that. It just didn't make sense to anybody in that ER because I mean first of all
this guy has not been in a traumatic accident. He wasn't in a car crash like there were no signs of
obvious trauma on his body where they're like oh well that's why he's losing all this blood.
He was literally in the care of a doctor, a plastic surgeon,
so how does somebody lose that much blood during a plastic surgery operation?
And why was the plastic surgeon so freaking calm when they called the ER?
The whole thing is so unsettling, and more so because Tae was officially declared brain
dead, and the next morning his family, they're called to the hospital.
And the plastic surgeons come too, the ones that operated on him.
And this is so depressing because when Tae's brother was called to the ER,
and again, I don't know the protocol, if you guys work at hospitals, please let me know,
let's say a family member is really sick in the hospital,
do you tell them it's an emergency or not?
Because are you worried that they're going to get into a car accident? Are they going to speed? So do you downplay? Like, emergency or not? because are you worried that they're gonna get into a car accident?
are they gonna speed?
so do you downplay?
like, what are the rules of that?
well, the hospital, they tell Taehee's brother
hey, your brother's in the hospital, but his condition is not that serious
they just straight up say it's not that serious
he's brain dead
yeah, so I don't know if it's like a hospital rule
so nobody like hurts themselves or hurts others
like driving, they're speeding or something I don't know so the brother
just assumed that maybe they had gotten into a bar fight or something listen
it's not good news but it's not life or death he's getting into the taxi
thinking I'm gonna fight my brother not physically but I'm gonna sit there and
I'm gonna scream at him because why is my little brother getting into bar
fights and ending up in the ER like he he's gonna be like, you're never
gonna do this again, like I'm gonna be your chaperone. That's what he's thinking on the way there.
But when he gets to the hospital, he's never gonna have a chance to scold his brother or even talk to
his brother. Because when he gets there, Tae is unconscious. The family, they're sitting there,
we want answers. We don't know how this happened, what are you talking about?
he lost two-thirds of his blood, that doesn't even make sense. nobody seemed to have any answers. the
hospital were like, we don't know. he was rushed over here by his plastic surgeon. he had 70% of
his blood gone, we couldn't really help him, and the plastic surgeon is like, well shoot, thanks for calling us, but it wasn't us.
We did the procedure as normal and oh, we even have the CCTV footage if you want it, Tae's mom.
You can have it because it like he was fine with us.
We brought him here and we don't know what happened here or on the way here, but something must have happened.
Now Mrs. Lee, Tae's mom, just had this feeling inside of her chest, like inside of her gut.
You know those types of feelings where she didn't know if the plastic surgeon was bluffing.
Like sometimes maybe the surgeon is like, we have the CCTV. You can take it if you want.
And maybe they're kind of expecting you to say, no, it's fine, like I trust you.
Because I don't know why he gave the CCTV. The CCTV is so important later.
So she takes the CCTV. this CCTV is so important later. so she takes the CCTV. she
just knew that something in that footage was gonna be important. she snatches it
right up, goes home and watches over it like 500 times. she literally sat there
writing down every millisecond and logging down what happened, like
time-stamping everything. the footage was literally in the operating room. So she's
replaying it over and over trying to figure out what the hell went wrong. And
I mean so many things went wrong. She will never get this picture out of her
head, but at the end of the plastic surgery for Taehee, he was left on the
operating table in the operating room with a nurse. Actually it wasn't even a
nurse, it was like a nursing assistant. So he's like under anesthesia, he hasn't woken up yet, all the other
surgeons they have left, and a few nurses are in and out of the room and nobody is
checking his vitals. Why? I don't know. I guess they don't care because the nurse
that's sitting in that room, she's on her phone, she's checking her makeup, she's
texting people. Listen, I just want say, nurses are amazing and they will save your life
but not this one apparently
she literally just could not care at all
she heard this noise coming from Taehee
this like dripping noise
and she looks down and Taehee is literally bleeding out onto the floor from his jaw
she goes and grabs a mop and mops the blood up. You're like, okay, that makes sense,
right? But she does this 13 times. This is not a leak from the ceiling because it's raining and
your ceiling isn't great. This is not like a river leak. Like this is someone's blood that's
continuously coming out of their body and
You're not putting more blood back into the body
But you're mopping it up 13 freaking times. I don't even think you have to be a nurse a nursing assistant
I don't think you have to even have much common sense to know that that's dangerous
Later the anesthesiologist comes into the room like an hour later and is like hey, did he wake up yet?
Why isn't he woken up and then they start freaking out at that point
So you're like how did the surgery even go wrong to the point where they're done operating on him
But he loses two-thirds of his blood
What kind of freaking plastic surgeon are we talking about?
So I think to understand the whole story of the ghost surgeries we have to talk about who Kwon Dae-hee is, okay?
Now Dae-hee was a really nice guy
we have to talk about who Kwon Dae-hee is, okay? Now, Dae-hee was a really nice guy.
Everybody that knew him describes him to be warm and humble,
and he was the type of son that would slave away in the kitchen on his mom's birthday
to cook some seaweed soup, myeokguk, which is a Korean tradition.
You have to eat this on your birthday.
Now, I don't know if it tasted good, but he would spend all day cooking that for his mom.
He did well in school.
He valiantly served two years in the Korean army.
Honestly, this guy was a high achiever, and he just really wanted to do well in life.
But here's the thing about Korea.
A lot of people think that South Koreans are super vain,
and that we are just all about looks,
and we all want to be the plastic surgery capital of the world
so we can look like your favorite K-pop idol.
That's not really the case, okay?
I can see why people might think that
because of the plastic surgery statistics in South Korea,
but listen, your average South Korean
is not trying to get plastic surgery
so that they can be a K-pop star.
They're trying to get plastic surgery
so that they can get a work promotion at their corporate job.
And you're like, that's dumb. What is that doesn't even make sense?
Okay, because South Korea the job market is so intense. It's not like here
Okay, do you have like five companies that everybody wants to work for?
Like that's that's it
You live your whole life trying to get into these five companies and then from there you're trying to get promoted in these five companies
But let's say everybody has the same grades as you
they have the same extracurricular activities as you what's gonna make you
stand out you know the the pretty privilege you know the halo effect when
someone is pretty and smart it seems like they're even prettier and even
smarter than someone who's just really smart or just really pretty so I mean
the whole thing is nuanced I mean it's kind of here in the US too,
but a lot of people in Korea will get plastic surgery right after they graduate high school.
This is like they're going to college present. Typically it's like double eyelid surgery, maybe a rhinoplasty, things like that.
So Taehee, he has the grades, but he always felt like his jawline was not that attractive.
The conventional beauty standard in Korea is to have a V-shape slim slim jawline like really sharp, kind of pointy almost, right?
And listen, you don't even understand. And then my mom would tell me in the shower
you have to get your knuckles, okay? Make sure your jaw is wet so it's not and then
you just gotta scrub it a hundred times like this, really hard. And I'm like I
think I am bruising myself
mother
so he felt like if he fixed his jawline
he would have higher promotions at work
he was also bullied throughout high school for his prominent chin
that's what everyone says, you got a big chin
so he would even edit his pictures before he posted it online
he would slim down his chin, which just breaks my heart
cause like f**k high school bullies and and honestly he just thought overall this was like a smart
choice for his career. jaw surgery is incredibly painful it's a pretty common
procedure the risk of dying is pretty slim but it's um I knew someone that knew
someone that had it and she said she would not wish this pain on her worst
enemy. how do you think you get rid of some jaw? I mean mean it's not like you have a ton of like fat just hanging out
right here on your chin you know it's not like it's a bunch of skin left over
it's just your bone. So they go in there peel off your skin and they literally
like grate your bone like you would a block of cheese. They just saw off your
bone and then put your skin back on and then that's jaw surgery
so for two years, he saves up as much money as he can till he has like an extra $5,600
and he was so excited to get his jaw done
he told his brother, he told his mom and they're like
no, absolutely not
you look fine, we love the way you look
but Tae was not gonna change his mind
so he secretly books a consultation at a well-known plastic surgery clinic that
literally specializes in jawline surgeries. Like other plastic surgeons are
known for their double eyelids, their nose jobs, this guy was known for his
jawline surgeries! It was in the richest area of Seoul, Gangnam, which is like
Beverly Hills. Even the whole office, like the front even the whole office like the front the lobby everything looked super nice and super modern and just amazing during the
consultation Taehee feels more at ease this famous well-known well-respected
doctor told him super simple so simple you don't even have to worry about it
you're gonna get discharged the same day I'm gonna go in there shave off some of
your jawbone to change the shape I know it sounds really intense. It should only take me like two hours ish
I mean if I'm not shaving too much off like I get in there and I'm like, oh, this is perfect
Then maybe like an hour and a half. That's about it
That sounds alarmingly fast
So Tae knew that it was gonna be painful, but he was excited
He booked the surgery with this doctor,
and he paid a premium to have this doctor work on his face.
And on September 8th of 2016, he goes into the hospital alone.
And again, the doctors are like, super easy procedure.
Don't even worry about it.
You're going to be able to ride the train home.
You're going to take the subway home.
You can get a taxi.
You're going to be all bandaged up.
Don't get me wrong, but good job, like so easy. obviously, that's not how it happened. so tae is put under
general anesthesia, and the timeline of his surgery goes something like this, and it's weird, i know
it's gonna sound like i'm just listing off times, but it's so important, this whole thing. 1 pm,
the plastic surgeon that he signed with, the one that he consulted with, goes in and starts the operation.
He cuts into his jawline,
and almost exactly an hour later, he leaves the room.
That's already kind of alarming.
Why'd you leave the room?
Are you gonna wash up and get sterile again
when you come back?
Where would you even go?
Why did you leave?
But that's not even the alarming part.
When he leaves, one minute later,
a new random doctor walks into the room.
Now, the medical charts and records for Tay
don't list this doctor anywhere.
This is not the assistant doctor for the surgeon.
This is not a resident that's training
underneath this plastic surgeon.
Nothing.
It's almost like this doctor doesn't exist. A.K.A. the ghost doctor.
Yes. So they walk in and just starts operating on Taehee. I mean, you would think that this
is some sort of imposter that broke into the hospital and wants to like torture patients
or something. So they work on Taehee's jaw for like 30 minutes. Then the main doctor
walks back in and then leaves again around 3 p.m.
So this is two hours after a surgery started,
which according to the main doctor,
the procedure should have taken just two hours.
But both the main doctor and this ghost doctor,
they leave the room and he's like open.
He's not all sewn up yet.
They leave the room and the nursing assistant comes in
and they stay in the room for like 30 minutes. there was not a single doctor in the room during the
time that he was technically open and he was under anesthesia. I'm sorry, nobody
wants to be in that situ- that sounds like a nightmare situation. then the
ghost doctor comes back, finishes the surgery, and leaves around 4 p.m. now this
is three hours after the start of the surgery.
Then the main doctor enters the room to dress Taehee's wound and just leaves. They all
leave. From there he's essentially wheeled into the recovery room at 7.30 and for the
next 3 hours the nurse just sits there expecting him to wake up soon and like mopping up his
blood casually 13 times off the ground right underneath
his head and she's not alarmed at all by this all the doctors just like left they
actually went home for the day the ghost doctor and the main surgeon were like oh
I work a nine-to-five guys I gotta go so they left they left but the
anesthesiologist was gonna come back I don't know if he went out to eat dinner
or something right but the anesthesiologist was going to come back. I don't know if he went out to eat dinner or something, right?
But the anesthesiologist, he comes back and he's like,
Oh, why isn't he waking up yet?
He's been out since like 1 p.m.
It's like what? 9 p.m.
Now that's weird.
Anything I should know about?
And the nurse is like, well, yeah, I did mop up his blood like 13 times.
So now the anesthesiologist starts freaking out.
He rushes him into the OR and is trying to find a vein
to put the blood into because he obviously needs blood
because he lost two thirds of his body's blood, right?
But he can't find a freaking vein.
And I was sitting there reading this like,
you are an idiot.
You don't deserve to be an anesthesiologist.
And I was panicked. I called my sister and she said that, maybe this is common sense, I don't deserve to be an anesthesiologist. And I was panicked.
I called my sister and she said that,
maybe this is common sense, I didn't know this,
but she said that when you lose blood,
so your veins, all they do is pump blood into your heart
to simplify it, right?
Your heart pump blood into the veins.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Your heart pumps blood into the veins
and then the blood goes back into the heart.
You get it, right?
It's like a whole system.
Well, it's not efficient if let's say the tube is this big
and you have so little blood. It's gonna use so much more pressure to move that blood along.
So what happens is your vein shrinks to try to make it a lot more efficient for your body to pump the blood.
Now what that means is it's gonna be really hard to find a vein, I mean, if you guys have ever gotten your blood taken and you have pretty...
pretty rough veins already, like the pain of people trying to find a vein when you've never lost blood already...
So he can't find the freaking vein.
Now he calls the main surgeon and he starts freaking out and they're like, we gotta call
the ER, but we gotta make it seem like it's not our fault.
So they call him, they're like, we just need to bring this guy in.
He's still conscious, don't worry.
The shady part is, without the CCTV, if Tae's mom didn't get that, she would have no idea who this random doctor is
and they would never have been held accountable
not even the main surgeon would have been held accountable
a ghost doctor is, especially it happens in plastic surgery, it's common in Korea but everywhere
it's when you use the fame of a plastic surgeon, the ones that are Instagram famous, the ones that everybody is like
oh I heard that celebrity got their work done there, the one that everyone's like the influencers are coming in and like doing the stories with them
well that doctor is gonna do your consultation
they're known for how good they are with da da da da da and you're like, okay
I'm willing to pay this premium. Dr. Tomato is the best of the best. But when you're knocked out from anesthesia,
Dr. Random will come in and operate on you.
You're like, why?
I mean, that doesn't make sense.
Well, a lot of people will hire attorneys
and are willing to pay more to get the name partner
on their case versus a random associate
because you feel like you want their expertise,
you want their skills, their talent, right?
But think about how many surgeries that famous plastic surgeon can do in a day.
Did you know in plastic surgery, in the business of plastic surgery, and a lot of other private
doctors, consultations are actually the moneymaker?
It's not actually the surgery.
Sometimes consultations are more important than the surgery.
Because when you first go in and you get a free consult with like a plastic surgeon,
that's when they're trying to sell you. They're trying to close the deal. So this is actually
the most important moment inside of that building because once they close the deal, your money is
their money. So the surgery, I mean it's already too late. Obviously they don't want a bad reputation
but they have your money.
Now, consultations are super important,
and everybody wants a consultation with these famous doctors.
Now, you got 24 hours in a day, eight of those hours they need to sleep.
I'm sure they only work five days a week.
Sure, they can charge more for being a famous doctor, but how much more?
It's just not lucrative enough.
So a lot of shady doctors have come up with a way around it. they'll take on a patient, promise to operate on them using
their skill set, and when the patient is knocked out on the operating table,
they'll start the procedure, slip away, and a ghost doctor will come in and do
most of the work. and while the ghost doctor is operating on patient A, the
main famous surgeon goes to patient B,
starts the whole process over again, and then to C and to D and they can do a bajillion surgeries
a day. And then when all's said and done, the ghost doctor will f**k off like a ghost that
never even existed. They'll never be listed on the records because remember, the patients are
paying a premium and only want the main doctor operating on them.
Now the crazy thing is the ghost doctors aren't just residents of plastic surgery.
Because that kind of makes sense. Residents are like doctors in training, especially at like teaching hospitals.
They work under attending doctors and they will
practice on patients while the attending doctor is watching them the whole time.
But this is not the same case.
Sometimes these ghost doctors are just freshly qualified plastic surgeons.
Sometimes they're dentists that are looking to get into plastic surgery,
or they need some quick side hustle money.
Sometimes they're nurses.
Or in some extreme cases in South Korea they're
medical equipment sales people. Medical equipment sales people like you're
trying to sell me a scalpel and now you want to operate on my patient. Can you
imagine? This is super illegal by the way but who will know? I mean if everyone at
work is benefiting, if every employee benefits from keeping this secret and
they're all making money, the
patient is knocked out, how will they know?
So in South Korea, the plastic surgery business is booming.
It's about a 10.7 billion dollar industry and it's almost incentivized for these clinics
to be run like factories.
Like let's talk about Park.
So Park was a patient at one of these clinics.
He was a 26 year old student and in 2012, he too wanted jawline surgery.
But the ghost doctor that performed his surgery barely knew, like, what they were doing.
Park was left mutilated, suffering from partial paralysis in his face, and he was just devastated.
He said he went to Dr. Sang because he was very famous.
I mean, he did think that it was a little bit strange that Dr. Tseng was like, oh well I have an opening next week.
Because this is like one of the most famous jawline surgeons at the time, so
he's like, what do you mean you have an opening next week? I thought the wait
list would be months, maybe a year. And he's like, oh don't worry, he's like
reassuring Park, oh don't worry, it's like someone canceled on me. So it's a
cancellation and you know what, it's an urgent situation I'll fit you in.
I don't know maybe it was that or something but Park felt like the whole
thing was weird. He just maybe he's being crazy, maybe he's being paranoid, he didn't
know, so he hid a tiny little recorder in his pocket. He like got one of those
audio recorders put it in his pocket and when he gained consciousness and he
realized that his face had been botchedched he replayed the audio recording and he was
so freaking traumatized because first of all the main doctor leaves and is like
okay bye now ghost doctor you have fun and he's like what who is this doctor
that I didn't sign up for so the main doctor is gone and on top of that the
assistants that were assisting the ghost doctor
They were literally physically poking at Park's body and making fun of him for not having enough muscles
What?
This is something that gets me so freaked out about surgery
Because I actually heard if you are in like an emergency situation, and this is not to fear monger people, but I heard um
You a lot of waivers that you sign technically they have the right to
like check your whole body even if they don't suspect something's wrong with your body. so
sexual assault while patients are under anesthesia is actually more common than you think is what i
read. i mean if i'm dying i'm dying so you gotta help me right? and i know that there's majority
good nurses and doctors out there but but but I'm just saying anyway
Park said being operated on was the worst decision of my life
I have lost sensation and part of my chin my nose is stunted and it's literally the opposite of everything that I was promised
So he reported doctors saying and the trial is underway now, but there was another instance
December 2013 a high school girl named a
She was brain dead after plastic surgery. She was getting a double eyelid surgery and a nose drop, a rhinoplasty.
And people were so shocked because it's like, how do you accidentally become brain dead from that?
This is like the two most common procedures, maybe all around the world, but specifically in South Korea.
These are not that dangerous. It's much less dangerous than like a BBL. It sounded terrifying. People are like, wait, do I have to be worried?
After investigation, it was found out that the main doctor that she thought was going
to do all her procedures did her double eyelid surgery, left her alone with a nurse for 40
minutes in the OR, then the ghost doctor comes in and he's starting to cut open her nose
and he's like, wait a minute, why is her blood oxygen monitor off? that's weird. the nurse is like I don't
know. so he turns it back on and her blood oxygen level is rapidly dropping
the anesthesiologist wasn't even in the room so they rushed to perform CPR and
in that moment she probably could have been saved if she was rushed to a real
ER in a real hospital
But the head doctor was scared that his practice would lose business. So he told the ghost doctor just finish her nose job
Like he wanted him to perform a nose job on a dying girl
That they knew was actively dying because if she dies and they could blame it on she just wasn't compatible
Like this is so rare. It must have been a her problem.
Or they wanted to do the whole, we finished up surgery and she was totally fine throughout the entire surgery,
but then after the operation, she went into critical condition.
Which again, it would still calm the nerves of everyone because it's almost like saying,
oh, she was like a very rare special case. Like she couldn't handle the situation.
Which I don't know how it works,
but I'm sure there's like nine million ways
that the ER could figure out
that you're lying out of your ass.
But by that time, it was too late.
A, was brain dead upon arrival in the ER.
The police went to investigate the plastic surgery clinic.
And they were so shocked at what they found.
Inside of the clinic, she wasn't even in a regular OR. Inside each operating room, you're only supposed to have one table.
I mean, we've watched so many medical shows. I'm sure you've watched Grey's Anatomy.
You know what it looks like, right?
But this clinic had two to three operating tables in one room with a curtain dividing the tables.
Super illegal, by the way.
But the doctors did this so that they could just move around and perform more surgeries. Like the ghost doctor is like, oh then I need you
here and here and here and then go faster and then the main doctor is like going from
patient A to B, C to D. I don't even know how that's sanitary. I don't even know if
you're breaking sterile regulations. Exactly. Like the sterile zone or whatever they call
it. It's like some sort of factory line. I mean, this clinic was straight up a surgery factory.
Even when the police went and saw the head doctor's schedule, he was scheduled on five different surgeries at the same time.
And each surgery was slated to last around five hours. I mean, it's literally impossible unless this guy has a time machine.
So as these stories start making headlines, a ghost doctor comes out anonymously to expose the industry.
And he said what's fascinating is that
if you perform the surgery and you help consult the patient,
like you are talking to the patient and closing that deal,
you get 5% of the total surgery profit.
If you just consult with the patient
and you close that deal,
you get 3% of the surgery profit.
If you do no consultation
and you just perform the go surgery, you get 2%.
You get less by doing the surgery
versus just doing a consult.
That's insane.
Because closing the deal is more important
than I guess their quality of work.
And that's not a lot of money they're getting paid.
No. Like 5% that's like imagine
the surgery cost like a few thousand right let's say five thousand for a surgery five percent five
thousand so 250 dollars. Yeah well a lot of it is like doctors who want training some of them aren't
even doctors they just like want to be trained and I guess they're just happy to have free training
plus they get a little hustle money on the side which is so alarming like for plastic
surgery that's so scary like you're fixing my face for life no thank you so
essentially they were saying that a lot of these clinics are set up by investors
who put money into a clinic and they pick the most charismatic doctor that
they can find not even the most talented just the one that is the most TV presentable, the one that looks
like an authoritative doctor, the one that talks really well, the one that is smooth
talking, not the awkward one that's really good at what they do but is not a people person.
No.
They pick the charismatic doctor, they get celebrity endorsements, that's their investment,
they have this doctor go on all these TV shows talking about plastic surgery,
maybe they start a YouTube channel, maybe they work with some influencers, they build that trust, and then when people come out as new patients,
of course, they want to see this famous doctor, and the famous doctor will basically sit there and do consultation after consultation after consultation,
The famous doctor will basically sit there and do consultation after consultation after consultation have them sign the papers, pay the money, book the services, and pretend
like they're the one doing the surgery.
But they're not because they've got a basement full of ghost doctors.
The ghost doctor said it's like literally a basement where you just have pagers and
you just random you don't even know ahead of time.
Am I going to do a nose job today or am I doing a jawline surgery?
You just get paged, you enter the operating room
and they're like, hey, fix up this jaw.
We're just gonna shave it into a V.
Wow.
And then once they're done with that,
they go back into the old basement room
and wait for another call.
Which is crazy.
Also, side note, I don't know why I'm getting this flashback,
but when I first started YouTube,
a Korean plastic surgery company reached out to me
and was like, we will fly you to Korea if you vlog your experience getting plastic surgery
with us yeah yeah yeah and I was like I will opt out which anyway again this
makes it seem like I am against plastic surgery I'm not I'm just against ghost
doctors and like shady plastic surgery businesses because they don't protect
the patient they literally hurt the patient.
Now anyway, there's no schedule, these ghost doctors will literally randomly operate on whoever the f*** needs them,
so they'll just come in in the middle of a nose job and just figure it out.
Just figure it out.
Then the head doctor and the investors will make tens of millions a year if successful,
which they would never be able to do if the famous doctor actually did all of the surgeries themselves.
I think that's insane.
A doctor came out to say to run a successful plastic surgery hospital, it's not even about
how skilled you are, it's about how good you are at consulting and marketing.
So why does South Korea do this if it's illegal?
Someone who orders or performs an unlicensed medical act is subject to a maximum of five years in prison or a fine of $44,000
Which is a drop in the bucket for these head surgeons that are profiting tens of millions of dollars a year
For example a doctor who asked a nurse to perform double eyelid surgery and no surgery at least 90 times
Got a three- month suspension and no fine.
Suspension? Yeah he just like couldn't perform surgeries not that he was to
begin with for like three months. So he took a vacation? Yeah and another doctor
who asked a medical device company employee like a salesperson of medical
devices to perform at least 58 surgeries got a three month suspension nothing even happened to their license
what is going on so obviously i mean the laws are not as relaxed here but i mean it's so hard to even
prove that they did any things that's why they get such a small little fine now anyway back to
tei's story he was operated on by a ghost doctor who was unqualified literally didn't even have a
plastic surgery license and he had studied to be a general doctor who was unqualified, literally didn't even have a plastic surgery license.
And he had studied to be a general doctor in medical school.
He was left unattended for hours at a time with no kind of doctor around.
He was left with nursing assistants who had no care that he was bleeding out in front
of them because all the doctors decided to go home.
Even the freaking ghost doctor went home.
So Tae's family, they're furious when they're watching this CCTV.
His mom said, I don't think that any of these doctors, there were three, the main doctor, the ghost doctor, and the anesthesiologist,
not a single one of them checked how much he bled. Not one freaking time.
And then the plastic surgeons had the audacity to try and fake medical records, and they tried to lie that they provided a blood transfusion,
which I guess they forgot that they gave Mrs.
Lee the CCTV, or maybe they didn't think that she was going to study every millisecond of it.
But she proved that they were lying.
And despite Tae-hee dying,
the plastic surgery clinic remained open and bragged about how not a single patient
was hurt in their 14 years of operation. Which was a complete lie, but the clinic
argued that Tae actually died in the hospital and the ER was at fault and not
them. So yeah, Tae's mom wasn't gonna let them do that. She actually found Tae's
bucket list at home and he was 24 years old when he passed, so he had his whole
life ahead of him and he had written on there as number 15 of
His bucket list that he wanted to do before he died was to make a difference in the world
So mrs. Lee she felt like that was her duty as his mother. She felt so
angry
Like for not only just what happened to him
But what happened to so many people like she was finding these online forms of people anonymously saying they're so embarrassed because even though plastic
surgery is so common you don't really talk about it in Korea it's not really
openly talked about that's why idols act like they never got surgery even though
like you know that they probably did kind of like here where the Kardashians
are like we never had a BBL what what are you talking about? So no one wanted to come forward even if they suspected ghost surgery had botched their
face.
So she's like, wow, there are people suffering in silence because they don't have a CCTV.
So she was insanely lucky to be given the CCTV footage.
She would never have had a court case without it.
So she fought the plastic surgeons and May of 2019 she won $381,000,
which honestly doesn't sound like a lot because we always listen to settlements in
the US that are in the millions, but this is quite a lot for a South Korean case of
death, which is so depressing too. And the three doctors are now facing criminal charges
of manslaughter. And in May of 2022 of
this year the head of the plastic surgery clinic the one that was supposed to
perform the surgery he was given a fine of $5,600 and sentenced to three years in
prison that's the amount of money that he paid less yeah basically refunded the
money they can charge after killing someone yeah and got three years in
prison for killing someone.
And okay, listen, I get it.
Sometimes doctors are put in really tricky situations
where the patient is already dying in their operating.
This was not one of those situations.
This was not when the doctor did everything in their power
and the patient still died.
This is like straight up he had no care for life.
But that wasn't all.
Mrs. Lee was not happy about this. She
spent literally every waking moment of her life outside the Parliament in South
Korea because she wanted change. Each day she would be out there just mandating
CCTV be in all operating rooms. She wanted it to be called the Kwon Tae-hee
bill. Doctors vehemently opposed this bill. They said, whoa, if you do this bill,
we won't be as comfortable saving lives.
Why?
People were like, yeah, why?
The public was suddenly like,
wait, that just makes me feel more gross.
What are you talking about?
They also said, no, no, no, the patients don't want this
because we would lose the trust in the patients.
Like the patients would be like,
why do you need a CCTV?
And everyone online was like, hi, fellow patient here.
We're fine.
We want a camera in the operating room.
Yeah.
So what?
The bill finally passed and it was called the Kwon Dae-hee Law
requiring CCTV and ORs.
And South Korea is actually the first country
to do this on a national level.
Wow. Yeah. She did it level Wow, she did it!
Yeah, she did it!
She did it!
There are exceptions
So you can't have operating cameras in emergency operations
Operations involving high risk to save a patient's life
Which makes sense because in those situations, there's no right or wrong thing to do
It's such a gray area where you're just trying everything to save this patient's life
because they're dying actively.
So to be criticized, I can see why from a doctor's perspective, that's really dangerous
and even from the patient's perspective.
So those are the exceptions and in training purposes,
which I don't know why that's an exception
because wouldn't you want to record it anyway
because you're training so then you can show it
to other students too?
Weird.
Now, a lot of people believe that this law
will make sure that no sexual assaults are happening,
or at least decrease it, because that's a huge thing too.
Yeah, so, that's freaking great.
And also, the older I get, the more I realize,
the world kinda sucks.
I don't know what to say, like,
the fact that this isn't already a thing and
the fact that like hospitals can be so shady just kind of sucks.
I was talking to my sister the other day about the ins and outs of a hospital
because she was a resident at one point, a resident pharmacist there.
It's so shady. Think of a hospital as like a Walmart because at the end of the day, it's about business.
It's not even about your life, but I'm sure you already knew that if you live in the States
There are a lot of stories
I can't believe we're talking about this again, but there
are a lot of stories coming out about the past and or scandals about the squid game
actors and sometimes I feel like the real stories about some of these actors is worse
than the show itself, which like how can it be worse than a show about contestants fighting
to stay alive Hunger Games style while they fight over a lottery-sized jackpot in a building-sized pig
Okay, if you haven't seen the show, it's just as ridiculous as it sounds. I'm not even exaggerating
So this is Lee Seung-hee and he recently jump-started his career again with his supporting role in the squid games
So he was number 17 in the show and I feel like his character gets most of the screen time near the end
He's not one of the main characters
So he's a glass factory worker and he was helping the main cast cross the bridge
Remember where the bridge falls? Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, um, I believe he dies in the game
We're in the game in the game. Okay. Yeah well in
2016 before squid game came out. Mr. Lee and his family were on a Korean reality show called Unanswered Questions.
It's kind of like 60 minutes, like an interview, but a little bit more casual, but it's not a fun reality show.
It's usually where people come and they talk about serious controversies or unsolved mysteries that have happened in their lives and in this episode the Lee family opened up about the weird
strange and unjustified murder of their oldest son in 2010. In 2010,
Jin-soo, I'm gonna call him Jin, was the oldest son of the family and he was 19 years old in 2010.
Now, he had spent his whole life in Korea.
I think that he had vacationed and went abroad a couple times, but you know
primarily that was his country of residence. His dream was to go to the United States to study. Both his parents
they want him to succeed. They want him to chase his ambitions, but at the same time, it's their firstborn child.
They want to go to the other side of the world. I mean, you're gonna be a little bit nervous. You're gonna be a little bit stressed.
Jin's mom especially was taking it really hard. She felt like, at least in her eyes, he was still
just a kid. Like he wasn't ready for this crazy life change and add to that, it's a 16 hour time
difference. It's not even like he's living in a different hour, he's living in a different day
from her. But he wanted to go study in LA and
the family did have family there so he wasn't gonna be completely alone he was
gonna be living with his uncle so after Jin left every single morning Mrs. Lee
would wake up and the minute that she opened her eyes she would say a little
prayer for Jin one morning she prayed that she would see her son soon she just
wanted to know that he was happy and safe.
And completely out of left field, she said this is, I mean like she doesn't really believe in stuff like this prior to this.
But she saw Jin's face. Not just in her vision. Like really saw his face. Not just a picture on her phone.
She saw him walk through her bedroom door. And it was so bizarre that she genuinely thought that she was hallucinating.
She's sitting there like, oh my god, do I need to take meds?
Do I need to go to therapy?
Because what is going on?
Why is my son walking in through my bedroom door?
Maybe he came to surprise her.
No, but it was just like a really eerie feeling where he wasn't like, hey mom, surprise.
It was just very eerie and she felt like her mind was playing tricks on her So she blinked and he was still there
It was just the strangest thing and it sent a shiver down her spine
And what's worse is that it didn't feel like a good sign. He didn't seem happy
Suddenly whatever or whoever was in front of her. He opened his mouth and blood started dripping out and
before he faded away, he said,
I love you, mom.
And immediately, Mrs. Lee, I mean, can you even blame her?
She freaked out.
She called her family in California,
and she just had this really sinking feeling,
this bad feeling that every bone in her body,
every fiber of her being was telling her
that something was very very wrong.
It was around 1pm in California, and Jin's mom said that Jin should be in school by now.
But when she called her relative they said, oh my god, I can't believe you just called
I was about to call you.
Jin was on the way to school but we literally just got word that for some reason, he's on
the way to the hospital.
We don't know what's going on, we don't know what happened, but apparently there was a
fight between Jin and a white football player, and's been injured and he's being sent to the
hospital. So that is some mother intuition. That's what I'm saying. And I heard, okay, I know some people might not believe in this,
but I heard mother's intuition is so strong. I wonder how it works. Yeah, I'm kind of curious to hear more about these stories.
Yeah.
About the mother intuition, I wonder.
Because in so many cases.
How do you explain that, right?
Did you know a baby thinks that they're a part of the mom
for six months?
What does that mean?
Like a baby after being born genuinely thinks that the mom
and the baby are one unit.
They don't distinguish the mom as like a separate unit.
So maybe there's like some sort of connection that's left behind
But it's so weird. Yeah, how do you even feel something like biologically speaking? Yeah, what is the scientific research of this?
I need to know because it happens in so many stories and I believe it like I believe it fully. Yeah me too
Yeah, it's weird. So anyway, she makes that phone call and now she's like, are you serious?
Like what is happening after the update, the news only got worse.
It was almost back to back, like just gut punches in the stomach.
By the time that he reached the OR, he was brain dead.
And it was just devastating.
Just 15 minutes ago, Mrs.
Lee had woken up praying for a good day and she had seen her son walk through her
bedroom door and now, now she's been told that her entire life had been ripped apart
and her son is brain-dead in California which is half a world away like on the
other side of the world so immediately they start making
arrangements to fly to California but it would take a full 48 hours for them to
get out there they needed to book the flight the flight itself would take 11
hours and I can't even imagine what those 48 hours felt like.
I can't even imagine.
Just imagine sitting on a plane where you can't pace around
and leave and cry for 11 hours, knowing that your son is
brain dead in the hospital.
You can't even call them for 11 hours
because you're on a plane.
I can't imagine that level of helplessness and stress.
So when the family gets to California, they were met with a slew of reporters outside the hospital,
and Mr. Lee immediately felt alarmed. The reporters were asking the couple,
what made you decide to donate your son's body?
What?
And they were so confused. Like, what do you mean we're donating his freaking body?
Like, why would you think that? Why would you say that?
We literally just got here from California, from Korea who even told you that but
they're not trying to argue they're just trying to get to their son so they're
like what what are you saying they rush inside the hospital and inside the
hospital this same thing okay the doctors informed the family that Jin was
brain dead the odds of him ever waking up from his coma or functioning like a
human were basically non-existent. But that's not all.
The respiratory system that was keeping Jin alive was very expensive.
The family would have to cover it if they needed to keep him hooked up to the machines.
So it was the hardest decision any parent ever had to make.
And with a very heavy heart, the family cut off Jin's life support.
And I don't know what you want in those
moments, like I don't know if there's anything in the world that will bring
you some semblance of peace or like closure. I'm sure there's nothing, but what
they definitely wanted was some quiet. But immediately, people started walking
into the room asking if they would donate Jin's body. I mean, why not, right? They're thinking, okay, well, if we donate his organs, he could at least
save lives and why wouldn't we? I mean, it feels kind of good. It's like he's
giving life in a sense and his body will be out there, you know? His organs will be
saving people. It's a good idea. It gave the family comfort. So yes, they told the
people with the clipboards
that they would donate Jin's organs.
But right before they signed the contract,
a nurse pulled Mrs. Lee aside.
Like she was like, psst, come here.
She glanced around nervously and she said,
wait, we have to go somewhere without cameras.
So Mrs. Lee is like, what?
They get somewhere and she quietly asks, do
you know what you just signed away? Did she sign or not yet? Not yet. Almost. What are
you talking about? We're donating his organs. They're not here for organ donation. You're
donating his whole body. That's what you're signing off to. You're donating his body to
science, literally everything. You will no longer have his body. It's not just his internal organs. Everything. His brain, his skin, his joints, his bones. His whole body is going to be gone.
You will have no one to bury at the funeral. You're donating his whole body for science.
But that's not the point. Your son was likely murdered. So if you donate his whole body, you can't have an autopsy to figure out what happened.
Nobody told Jin's mom this.
Thank god for someone with like...
Like, I get it you need to donate bodies to science because that's how the people in the medical field advance
and that's how we get better healthcare and we get more experience and knowledge,
but at the same time, he was murdered.
Like, you would never do that.
Donating someone's body to science is one thing, but the fact that you do it in such a
weird way where you know for a fact that they think you're just donating organs and
they're going to get their son back to bury and rest in peace, but you're tricking them
essentially, like it's really f**ked up and there's a whole thing about it.
Okay.
But anyway, Jin's mom was so taken aback.
She had no idea.
Like that's what they were signing up for.
Nobody made it clear for her.
Sure, you could say it was a language barrier,
but nobody made sure that she knew
that it was a whole body donation versus an organ donation.
So it's said that a lot of the times,
whole body donation is to be studied for science.
A lot of the times medical students
will practice on cadavers. So later on they're well equipped to be studied for science. A lot of the times medical students will practice on cadavers, so later on they're well-equipped to be
doctors, and I don't know where you guys stand on whole body donation. I know most
people agree with organ donation, but they want to bury their loved ones. I
know there's a lot of spiritual people out there or religious aspects where
having a body be at rest after death is so important. So all of those I get.
But what's weirder is that, you know, he was murdered.
They need an autopsy.
Oh, which side note?
Did you know whole body organ donation is not really federally regulated?
It's a bunch of brokers that go out to hospitals.
They look for vulnerable people.
They pretty much sell you.
They're really aggressive for you to sign away the rights.
And then they sell those cadavers. they sell those bodies to medical facilities like they
sell them to universities they're like corpse dealers yet they're literally
corpse dealers there's not much regulation on who can and cannot be a
corpse dealer so they will go into hospitals harassing people I wonder how
much they sell like a body for.
I know.
It's so weird.
Wow.
Like the fact that like you would imagine these things are regulated.
You would imagine that like the hospital is doing it in a very respectful way.
Like you would never imagine a corpse dealer showing up at your most vulnerable moments
in grief.
Just the insight story and these things behind like medical hospital.
Just so, so uneasy.
So uneasy.
Like the more that you read up on hospitals, the more it really is just a cash cow.
Like that's all it is.
And I'm not saying about the people.
I'm talking about the people running the hospital, not the health care workers.
But the operation of it is so scary.
So Jin's family, once they find out the truth. They did not want to donate Jin's whole body
They would also not donate his organs either because you need to have the organs intact for an autopsy and this made the donation people
very very angry
Which again goes to the fact that it's not federally regulated
It's not people that have the best interest of families and people because you know what I mean? If you were looking for cadavers for medical reasons,
you would say, I totally get why you're here.
Why are they here?
These dealers, why are they here?
I guess they just assumed.
I think they like scout hospitals, I'm assuming.
And I think they assumed because they're not good at English
and they're not residents here and to bring Jin's body back to Korea.
Okay, so this has nothing to do with the other party? No, I don't think so.
Okay, that's because that's what I was thinking like are they trying to get rid of something? Yeah, it's so weird though
It is weird maybe because it gets fishy. Okay. So again, I'm not saying that we should be against whole body donations
I'm just saying like the way that it works is kind of shady and there's gonna be bad people in this business and
Definitely you need to read all the terms and conditions for something like this and they're just preying upon the Lee family because maybe it's
Like they don't speak English. They don't want to bring their baby back to Korea, which is like what an assumption to make
So they're getting mad at the Lee family the donation people yelling about how they already wrote up the contract and saying things like you
Can't back out now. You promised we printed the paper and everything
Jin's family said it was so bad that they had to lock themselves in the hospital room
even nurses were shocked and surprised at how aggressive they were and if I'm
not being mistaken it seemed like they were thinking truly oh these foreigners
it's gonna be easy eventually the donation vultures they backed off and
Jin's body was set in for an autopsy now his cause of death was determined to be a result of brain hemorrhaging caused by blunt force
trauma to the head. So immediately LAPD starts treating Jin's death as a
homicide. Now there were some weird things that got lost in translation. Jin's
mom had heard a white football player on the phone. Remember how a white football
player was involved but nobody ever said it. Even the family member that was on the phone with her was like,
I never said a white football player. So there was no white football player involved.
Is there even a football player? It's like a soccer player.
Yeah, so it gets really weird. Now the truth slowly starts coming out,
which was that Jin had gotten into a fight with another Korean student, and let's just call him Alex for the purpose of this video.
His identity is withheld.
Alex and Jin were friends, but they weren't close allegedly. Like they had same classes, they hung
out here and there, but they were never the ones to be like attached at the hip. There was no
particular tension. There was really nothing going on between them. They were just regular friends,
you know what I mean? Now even for Jin's birthday party, he had invited Alex and apparently Alex was very Americanized
And Jin had grown up in Korea his whole life, right?
So it's kind of a different culture now apparently at the birthday party things started getting weird because
Witnesses saw Alex walk up to Jin's uncle and kind of slap his shoulder and say hey
Like hey like put his hand on his shoulder and go hey
disrespect yeah Like hey, like put his hand on his shoulder and go hey disrespect, yeah
Which in America would be completely normal in Korean culture. It's incredibly disrespectful
Especially because this was in the uncle's house
Like you're coming to somebody's house and you're not abiding by their customs and traditions
So the uncle is like why who do you think you are? Like you're in my house
I don't care if you're still in America.
You still need to show respect and manners.
The party continued as normal, but it said that later,
Jin wanted to talk to Alex about it.
He felt some type of way about it.
You know, the way that Alex treated his uncle,
it seemed like Alex, fine, you grew up in the States,
but come on, you know that's disrespectful.
Like you should have known,
you're around enough Koreans to know.
So a lot of people believe that this small tension Come on, you know that's disrespectful. Like you should have known. You're around enough Koreans to know.
So a lot of people believe that this small tension
started boiling and boiling and started to build.
Jin allegedly told Alex, on top of that,
you need to treat me with respect
because I'm 19 and you're 17.
So friends who saw these interactions said,
Jin would always say it in a totally joking way,
but it's unclear if Alex was triggered by it.
I mean, this is a whole point of contention between them.
It's a huge thing between a lot of Korean exchange students and Korean Americans.
Like I've experienced this because I guess I'm more considered like culturally a Korean American.
And there would be times in high school, in my very white high school,
where like a few Korean exchange students would be there and they'd be like,
you need to call me unni. And I'd be like, why? But but you're not my unni like I got an unni and she's at
home because she's my blood sister you know what I mean who are you so it was
like a point of contention right but again none of it would have turned out
the way that it did so that particular day friends said that Jin and Alex were
outside and they seemed to be bickering but nobody intervened because it wasn't
fighting it wasn't yelling it was just kind
of like you know where you're both like taking jabs at each other surely they could handle it
these are adults so they're just doing their own thing nobody pays them any attention so we don't
know what happened but alex said jin threw the first punch punched him again there's no way to
prove or disprove this there are no other witnesses who came forward.
So it's just Alex's word. Now what we do know is that Alex was a soccer player and he was,
he had his soccer cleats on, his shoes, the one with the spikes, and he confessed that he kicked Jin with those shoes twice in the face.
In the face? How do you kick someone in the face?
People say that's like some weird...
Karate? Like what are you saying?
Like it's not like the movies where you're that fast. I imagine that he wasn't that fast.
I imagine that Jin had time to move because he wasn't drunk. There was nothing to block his reflexes.
You kick someone in the face when they're on the ground.
Exactly. But he said, Jin threw the first punch. He didn't say he shoved or anything.
He just kicked him in the face two times with his soccer cleats.
And he said the whole altercation lasted 30 seconds before their gym teacher ran out and broke up the fight.
Now, Jin collapsed on the way back into the school and he never got back up.
So the state decided to press charges against Alex and Jin's family starts looking for attorneys.
Now, this is really wild. The family had no idea where to find a good attorney.
They also, you know, he's not the most famous actor in Korea,
and especially in 2016, he really wasn't that well known.
Like, he had his core group of supporters,
but he was not, like, the main character of Squid Game.
He was not on all these K-dramas.
They couldn't afford a lawyer, but it was high-profile enough
that they get a Korean- American lawyer calling named Larry.
Let's call him Larry.
And Larry said that he was an influential lawyer
in the area with over 40 years of experience,
working with the LA legal system
and he was also well connected
to high powered politicians and prosecutors.
So he knew what he was doing.
Larry even flew to Korea to meet with Jin's family
and introduce himself.
And he looked exactly how they imagined.
He said the process was going to be. He would represent them in court,
they would file a wrongful death suit against Alex and against the school, and hopefully get some money out of it.
Now, Jin's family winced at that because they didn't want the money. They just wanted justice.
I mean, yeah, money would have been helpful though because, again, they're not doing that well.
They're not rolling in money, and they're facing a bunch of medical fees and all the flight costs, the funeral expenses.
Yeah, money would have helped.
And thankfully, Larry said that he would not ask for money upfront. He would only take money if they won the lawsuit.
So a few months passed by, nothing big happens and the family is confused like, hello,
isn't this supposed to be where we're making progress?
They reach out, Larry doesn't pick up up they get in contact with someone from the police
And the police are like, oh we thought you had an attorney. They didn't let you know
We dropped the charges against alex
what
So nobody bothered to even alert the family. Larry just decided no money. Not my job not worth it anymore
What makes the whole situation more suspicious?
Because what kind of lawyer does that?
But it's after the charges were dropped, Alex moved to Korea.
Okay.
Now, I don't know if his parents were there,
or he wanted to get a clean break,
but it just feels a little bit convenient.
Nobody moves to Korea, especially if you're a Korean American.
Your family has spent so much time and money
immigrating to the US. Unless you finish college, or you're going to college in Korea, especially if you're a Korean American, your family has spent so much time and money immigrating to the US.
Unless you finish college or you're going to college in Korea or you've secured a job in Korea,
it's not the most standard thing to move back to Korea. Out of nowhere? Out of nowhere. Okay.
So it feels a bit convenient, right?
So the police also decided the whole thing was an unfortunate incident.
They didn't even charge Alex with involuntary manslaughter, which is technically what you
would charge him with because it wasn't premeditated murder, it was manslaughter.
And to add to that, Jin's family was like, okay, well if you close the case, then we
want the records because we're going to find a new attorney.
And the police said that the records were destroyed.
Which is weird because closing a case, okay, it's weird, but it's not alarming, it's
been done before. but destroying files?
That's bizarre.
One of the few surviving records reported that Jin had a.10 alcohol in his blood during
the fight, meaning that he was considered legally drunk.
This is weird because the hospital showed his level was.010.
So again, that's a huge difference between one is drunk and the other one is sober.
So either the police are being shady or they're that incompetent.
Honestly, I think they're that incompetent.
But the whole case just reeks of suspicion.
But how do you drop a case like that though?
So they were just saying we looked at the facts and it was an unfortunate incident.
We're not going to pursue it because no crime happened.
Who's making the call on this? Geez.
That's what I'm saying.
So three years later, the family wanted to reopen the case in Korea.
They had Jin's body exhumed for a second autopsy.
His body would have been decomposed quite a bit by this point,
so it was going to be a lot harder.
But they concluded that the cause of death was a heavy blow to the upper stomach
with something like soccer shoes hitting his stomach.
That would have caused a heart attack that would lead to the cerebral hemorrhaging in his brain.
So Jin did have a hemorrhaging to his brain, but not because of a blow to the head, but rather to the upper stomach.
So does that mean that Alex kicked him more times than he admitted or did he kick him in the stomach instead of the head?
Which is why would you lie about that? Because I feel like the stomach sounds nicer than the head.
To be like, oh, I kicked them in the stomach. Sounds nicer than I kicked them in the face.
It was just so strange.
So Lee Sang-hee teared up and he cried and he said...
Because he just felt so powerless about the whole situation.
He said, I feel sorry for my son that his dad is so powerless.
And I feel so sorry that even after death he can't rest in peace.
Because they had to exhume his body.
In Korea, the family sued Alex for wrongful death.
The judge ruled in favor of Alex, saying there was not enough evidence for a conviction
because, like I said, they couldn't even get police reports because they were destroyed.
They had like a few things but it was nothing. The family appealed the case in
2019, ten years after Jin's death, and they won the appeal. Which everybody knows
how rare that is to win an appeal, especially in South Korea, but they did.
And Alex was sentenced to three years in prison.
And Jin's parents think about Jin every single day.
Jin's dad said,
I really want to see him again.
Sometimes I still hear his voice in my head telling me,
Dad, let's go have a drink together.
And as an actor, you need to know this.
And dad, you need to do this as an actor.
He always gave his dad all these tips
and he always lectured his dad
Lee Sung-hee was interviewed and he was asked what would you do if Squid Game was real and you won the money?
And he said that he would build an acting school so that actors like himself the ones with no education
No connections in the industry would have a chance and that is the really really shady murder of Jin.
Not to like have conspiracy, but why does it just sound so shady?
So there is a conspiracy that Alex's family was well off.
Yeah.
Compared to Jin's family and now I don't think Alex's family was well off to the point where
people are like, oh my god, they're so wealthy. This is like eat the rich situation. But I think it's also the victim was a foreigner who maybe didn't have as many roots and connections
in LA. And the LAPD are known for having some shady officers for sure that will take bribes.
Even the dealers at the... If somebody was killed or murdered, obviously...
They're gonna want an autopsy.
Exactly!
At what scenario would somebody want to give away the body?
And why were they already waiting at the...
Like, reported at the door?
Exactly!
And why were they already saying,
Oh, like, oh, we heard you're donating your body
when they didn't talk to anybody?
Yeah, so that just brings me to think
somebody probably called some people, bring them to the hospital. Yeah, so that just brings me to think somebody probably caused some people, bring them to the hospital.
Yeah, and then the police just
disregarding it, destroying the evidence or records. I don't know.
I feel like, I mean obviously Alex did something,
but I also feel like he kicked him more times than he said and probably in various locations
is how I feel and that's why he's changing his story and maybe his family is more
Well-connected or more well-off and wanted to create this whole situation
I know it's a big conspiracy, but it just doesn't make sense
Otherwise, we're just looking at too many coincidences like the body-donator dealers and then you have the LAPD be just being so stupidly
Incompetent like that doesn't make sense either. And the lawyer is just what?
Yeah, the lawyer is confusing, like wasting their time when they could have gotten a real lawyer who could fight this.
And the thing about the blood alcohol level, it's such a- I know it seems like a typo,
but when it comes to blood alcohol level, you can't have typos because you're not dealing with a number that's like 100 is drunk and 1 is not
Right, you're dealing with like points. Everything is a point
Yeah, so the fact that they just like took away the zero after the point. It's it's I feel like it's so weird
What are your thoughts on this case? I need to know in the comments