A devastating blow for bottom-ranked Kiwoom Heroes! Playing coach Lee Yong-gyu, who was driving under the influence at 6 a.m., ran a red light and caused a chain-rear-end collision... Kiwoom club "assessing the situation"

*This content was translated by AI.

A major disaster has struck the Kiwoom Heroes, who are stuck at the bottom of the professional baseball standings. Lee Yong-gyu (41), a veteran and playing coach of the team, was driving while heavily intoxicated early in the morning and caused a chain-rear-end collision after running a red light.

According to a NEWSIS report on the 12th, the playing coach Lee Yong-gyu caused an accident around 6:25 a.m. that day while driving his sedan under the influence of alcohol on a six-lane road in Achon-dong, Guri-si, Gyeonggi Province.

Investigation revealed that the coach ran a red light while proceeding straight and collided head-on with a sedan that was making a U-turn after receiving a normal signal from the opposite direction. The impact did not end there. After the accident, the coach's vehicle was thrown to the side and only came to a stop after rear-ending a police patrol car that was parked by the roadside.

Immediately after the accident, police measured the coach's blood alcohol concentration, which was found to be at a level warranting "license revocation" due to heavy intoxication. As a result of the accident, a man in his 60s who was driving the U-turn vehicle and one police officer on the patrol car were injured and transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. Currently, police have filed charges against Coach Lee Yong-gyu for drunk driving and running a red light under the Road Traffic Act and are intensively investigating the exact circumstances of the accident.

A Kiwoom official also told StarNews, "We have just received the news, and club staff are quickly heading to the baseball field to assess the situation. We will provide further updates once all confirmations are complete."

The Kiwoom club appointed Lee Yong-gyu, who had been serving as a playing coach, to the position of first-division playing hitting coach on May 21, following the resignation of first-division hitting coach Kim Tae-wan due to personal reasons. While head coach Kang Byung-sik essentially took charge of hitting, with Lee Yong-gyu serving in a supporting role, he was involved in a drunk driving accident in less than a month.

The Kiwoom Heroes, enduring a difficult season after falling to the bottom of the standings due to poor performance, have suffered a fatal blow to the team's atmosphere from the recent drunk driving scandal involving coach Lee Yong-gyu.

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*This content was translated by AI.