“If I don’t sleep, my head feels foggy”: Six employees die at an apartment security firm over three years—what happened?

[Financial News] It has emerged that as many as six employees at an apartment security company have died over the past three years. Many are older workers who returned to work after retirement, and with 24-hour shifts, cases of employees collapsing or dying are not uncommon.
According to a KBS report on the 26th, a 71-year-old apartment security guard identified as A works alternating 24-hour shifts.
At 6:50 a.m., as people hurry to work, he heads home after his shift, dragging his weary body along.
A said, “After work, I sleep from 8 until around 10, but if I don’t sleep, my head feels foggy.”
Aside from three hours for lunch and dinner, his only rest is four hours at night. Even then, there is nowhere to lie down comfortably, and the work never lets up.
A admitted, “There are early-morning deliveries now, too, so nights are busier. If someone wants to enter the parking lot, we have to open the gate for them, don’t we? I can’t leave my post.”
Such irregular shift work has been found to carry a higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease. Apartment security guards, whose average age is high, are especially vulnerable.
An expert said, “Even if you have 24 hours off the next day, your biological clock, disrupted in the meantime, doesn’t return to normal. The 24-hour alternating-shift system is very concerning from a health perspective.”
At one security company, six people have died from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases since 2023; there is also a site where three security guards died over a two-year period. All were aged 65 or older and worked 24-hour alternating shifts.
Lee Hack-young of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly’s Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee, criticized the government, saying, “There are cases in which workers collapse or die from cardiovascular disease, but the Ministry of Employment and Labor has not been able to come up with any measures.”
Over the past four years, 18 building-management companies, including security firms, have reportedly had at least two deaths from overwork.
[email protected] An Gaeul Reporter