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Note #7918 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

No greater love
03372
September 4, 2003

No greater love

Young Presbyterian, trying to save a life, loses his own

By John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - June Young Pak, 18, drowned in a flash flood in Ohio on July 21
while trying to rescue a neighbor trapped in a basement car park.

Hudson, OH, south of Cleveland, had had nearly six inches of rain in three
hours, and was experiencing a "hundred-year flood." Atterbury Boulevard had
become a raging river, and the basement of Versailles Condominiums, where Pak
lived, was filling with quickly rising water. Robert Kirby, a 53-year-old
jewelry store owner, was trying to get his car out when he became trapped.

Pak, a Korean-American member of University Presbyterian Church, didn't know
Kirby, but when he heard the older man's cries for help, he waded right in.

He and Kirby wound up on the wrong side of a locked door. On the other side,
June's brother Rae, 16, a strong swimmer like June, tried frantically to open
the metal door.

"I can't find the handle!" he shouted in the dark. June banged on the door to
indicate where it was, saying, "Over here." Rae found the door and tried to
turn the handle with his feet, then dove down and tried with his hands. But
it was no use.

"I can't get it open," he said. "Is there another way out?"

Said Kirby: "There is no way out."

"Keep trying," June suggested, with what Rae later called an "eerie" calm.

Rae tried for several minutes more, although he was being jolted repeatedly
by strong electric shocks as the water reached the building's transformer.

Finally, forced to withdraw, Rae dragged himself out of the murky water and
urged bystanders to call 911. Until then no one had thought to call for help.
About an hour had passed by the time emergency personnel reached the scene.

Meanwhile, Pak and Kirby had died together in the dark.

By all accounts, June Pak, who graduated from Hudson High School in May, was
a nice kid, loved by everybody. His pastor, the Rev. In-Kyu Park, describes
him as "the kind of guy who helps other people all the time."

He was planning to go to Ohio State University this fall and pursue his dream
of becoming a lawyer. Just 24 hours before his death, the pastor says, the
two of them had met to discuss "how to prepare for him to go to college."

At Hudson High, Pak had been involved in the Asian Awareness and English as a
Second Language programs, while also working at the neighborhood Acme
supermarket. According to Park, he also was a goalie on the lacrosse team,
and while he wasn't particularly skilled, he was "very diligent."

Hudson High Principal Roger Howard told the Akron Beacon-Journal, "It's
tragic when I can shake a young man's hand at commencement, and by the end of
the summer he's gone."

Park is upset that it took Pak's neighbors so long to call for help. "Had
other panicked residents called the police immediately after escaping the
basement garage," he has written, "there would have been enough time for the
police to come and rescue the trapped men. ... Indifference, not the water,
dominated the dark night - at least for a while."

The response has been more positive since the tragedy, thanks in part to
stories about Pak's heroism that have appeared in local newspapers.

Pak's lacrosse teammates and a couple of dozen other students and former
students organized a car wash and raised more than $5,000 in his memory.
Hundreds of autos, many of them conspicuously clean, lined up for scrubbings.
Organizers say some of the money will go to Versailles condo residents who
lost their possessions in the flood. Park says the rest will be used to
establish a scholarship in Pak's name that will go to "young people who
helped other people."

University Presbyterian is a small campus ministry between Cleveland and
Akron in northeastern Ohio that draws students - mostly Korean, many of them
"non-Christians studying here," Park says - from the College of Wooster, Case
Western Reserve University and other schools in the area.

June and Rae's parents, Dr. and Mrs. Sung Sik Pak, are founding members of
University who have been "on-and-off" worshippers for 15 years. Dr. Pak
served on its session while working toward his Ph.D. at Kent State
University. He later returned to Korea, but brought the family back to the
United States four years ago so his sons could attend high school here.

Park, the pastor says: "Our congregation and I have suffered along with the
Pak family, but have found a new kind of meaning in ministering. ... It is a
blessing to minister to those in need."

Park says he is grateful for the $2,000 that Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
contributed to help pay Pak's funeral expenses, and for all the help Ohio
flood victims have received through the American Red Cross and the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

So far the Pak Family Benevolent Fund has collected about $8,000;
contributions have come from as far away as California. Donations may be sent
to Pak Family Fund, First Merit Bank, 116 W. Streetsboro Road, Hudson, OH
44236.

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