This photo taken March 30, 2025, shows a piece of aluminum structure missing from the wall (top row, middle) above a concession stand at Changwon NC Park in Changwon, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The piece fell and injured two fans during a Korea Baseball Organization game between the home team NC Dinos and the LG Twins the previous day. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
CHANGWON, South Korea, March 31 (Korea Bizwire) — A baseball fan who suffered a head injury in a recent incident at a stadium died on Monday, police said.
Masan Dongbu Police Station in Changwon, some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, said the fan, a woman in her 20s, died Monday morning, two days after undergoing surgery for a head injury she’d sustained at Changwon NC Park during a Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) regular-season game between the home team NC Dinos and the LG Twins.
According to the Dinos, a piece of aluminum, installed outside the windows of the Dinos’ office on the third base side, fell from about 18 meters above the ground and hit the top of a concession stand first before landing on the deceased fan and her sister. The former suffered a head injury and the latter broke her collarbone in the incident.
The piece is 2.6 meters long and 40 centimeters wide, and weighs about 60 kilograms, according to the Dinos.
Police and the National Forensic Service are investigating the cause of the incident, and local police said they may investigate team and stadium officials on charges of manslaughter by professional negligence.
The incident forced the KBO to cancel Sunday’s game between the Dinos and the Twins. And hours after the fan passed away, the KBO announced that all five games scheduled across the league for Tuesday will be canceled out of respect for the victim.
The Dinos’ three-game series against the SSG Landers, set from Tuesday to Thursday, will be postponed in its entirety, while the rest of the league will return to action Wednesday. The Kiwoom Heroes will visit the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, and the KT Wiz will host the LG Twins at Suwon KT Wiz Park in Suwon, just south of the capital.
In the central city of Daejeon, the Hanwha Eagles will host the Lotte Giants. The Kia Tigers and the Samsung Lions will meet in the southern city of Gwangju.
The KBO said all four games on Wednesday will not feature cheering, and players will wear black ribbons on their jerseys in honor of the late fan.
Opened in 2019, Changwon NC Park is the second-newest stadium in the KBO.
In response to the incident, the remaining KBO teams said they had either conducted safety inspections at their home stadiums over the weekend or plan to do so Tuesday.
KBO stadiums could be subject to the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, which penalizes employers or corporations for fatal accidents at a public place. The league office informed teams of that possibility at the board of directors meeting in January 2022, soon after the law took effect. Under this act, corporate owners or CEOs may face a minimum of one year in prison or a fine of up to 1 billion won (US$678,790).
Currently, all KBO baseball stadiums are owned by their respective municipal governments and are operated by the home teams.
With Changwon NC Park, it remained unclear whether the city of Changwon or the Dinos had the responsibility for maintaining and managing facilities at the stadium.
Officials for both entities declined to comment on the matter Monday, only saying paying respects to the victim and preventing similar incidents remained their priorities.
(Yonhap)
