CPR hero recalls deadly Halloween crush in Seoul

STORY: On the night of the deadly crush in Seoul, South Korea - Park Keun-ho was on his rooftop bar.

The pub he owns overlooks a narrow alley in the Itaewon district.

I was working behind the counter, he says.

He recalled looking outside from time to time since opening the bar at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of young people had flocked to the area - for the first virtually unrestricted Halloween festivities in three years.

Park says at first he was excited to have so many customers.

Then he captured this video at 9:55 p.m.

It shows people flooding the streets...

And shortly after, at 10:20 p.m. – chaos erupted.

The crowd poured into one particularly narrow and sloping alley that was already packed wall-to-wall.

Social media footage showed people squeezing into the streets for several blocks surrounding the alley where many of the deaths would occur.

Witnesses say when those at the top of the slope fell, it sent people below toppling over others.

The result was a crush that killed at least 154 people and injured 149.

Park directed his staff to keep customers inside - and ran down to the scene.

He performed CPR - and managed to save one woman's life.

There were dead bodies all lined up along here, he says. Over here – we'd perform CPR and then send people on their way.

Roughly 100,000 people were estimated to be in Itaewon on Saturday.

But according to the city of Seoul, there were only 137 police officers in the district at the time.

Officials are still investigating the cause of the crush.

Safety experts say proper traffic control could have prevented or at least reduced the surge that led to the disaster.