A black box footage of Korean actor Kim Joo Hyuk's fatal car accident was released today, from the car behind Kim's car.
The footage showed the scene of an accident at Yeongdong-daero(road) in Samseong-dong, Seoul on October 30, around 4:30 PM KST.
In the footage, Kim Joo Hyuk's black Mercedes-Benz SUV was seen on the first lane, then suddenly clipping the black Grandeur ahead of him.
Then Kim's SUV slows down and changes lane to the 4th lane. His car stops in between 4th and the 5th lane for about 7 seconds.
But soon, when the Grandeur driver tries to change the lane, Kim's car suddenly accelerates and bumps into the Grandeur. Then Kim's car, instead of stopping, it swerves to the right toward the sidewalk and crashes into an apartment building. Then it overturned on an apartment building staircase.
Kim Joo Hyuk was taken to Konkuk University Hospital 30 minutes after the accident, but he died at around 6:30 PM local time.
According to the police investigation, the Grandeur driver (witness) said, "Kim Joo Hyuk's car bumped into my car from the back. When I tried to pull my car over onto the hard shoulder, I saw actor Kim clutching his chest with both hands. Then I saw his SUV accelerating and crashing into the apartment building."
In order to determine the exact cause of actor Kim's death, police requested an autopsy at the National Forensic Service.
Actor Kim's management agency, NAMOO ACTORS announced, "In order to find out the exact cause of actor's death and details of an accident, we've decided to do an autopsy. We'll inform you about the funeral process once the autopsy schedule is confirmed. Please be careful about the speculative reports."
(Updated as of October 31, 2:42 PM KST)
Actor Kim Joo Hyuk's cause of death is identified to be serious head injury, following the first round of autopsy findings.
October 31, Police reported about the first round of autopsy findings by National Forensic Service. Police said the proximate cause of Kim's death is "Critical head injury that can lead to an instantaneous death".
Police added, "Earlier the report about heart attack being the main cause of Kim's death seems to be false."
Then police also said, "But we'll know for sure about heart or drug-related problems after performing a biopsy."
It was reported that drug test or biopsy will take about a week, and in order to find out the exact cause of his death will take more time.
Meanwhile, Kim Joo Hyuk won the 'Best Supporting Actor' award last week at the Seoul Awards and died yesterday in a car crash at the age of 45.
(SBS Star)