Women Killed in Wall Collapse Differed, but Shared a Devotion

SAN GABRIEL —  On the surface, Eui Shin Lim and Susan Kim seemed to have little in common.

Lim was the outgoing one: a bubbly varsity song leader and homecoming queen at Alhambra High.

Kim was quieter. She taught Sunday school, studied child development at Cal State Los Angeles and wanted to become a kindergarten teacher.

But Lim and Kim, both born in South Korea, shared a strong devotion to Christianity and to their Korean Divine Light Church in San Gabriel.

And both died last week doing something deeply important to them: working side by side on a church construction project in an impoverished section of Tijuana.

Lim, 17, and Kim, 20, were smothered Saturday afternoon when an earthen foundation collapsed and fell on them while the two were helping dig a ditch near a Mexican Baptist church in the neighborhood of Colonia Felipa Velasquez. Five others, all church volunteers, were injured.

The Korean church’s youth leader, Bethany Marshall, 28, suffered a fractured pelvis and remained hospitalized Wednesday. A hospital spokeswoman at UC San Diego Medical Center said she was in fair condition.

Ironically, the deaths and injuries occurred as the church members were preparing to build a brick retaining wall because the church’s foundation was weak and in danger of collapse.

Lim, Kim and 13 others drove to Tijuana in the church van Friday night and were to return Monday. Eight volunteers from another church in Rancho Cucamonga joined them in Mexico.

It was the group’s third trip to the area, a poor neighborhood without running water, sewage lines or paved roads. They camped out in sleeping bags on the dirt floor of the church and bought bottled water from trucks that drove by periodically.

“I’m proud of them, very proud. They gave their lives for a good cause,” said Bo Pil Suh, minister of the Korean Divine Light Church, where Lim and Kim were longtime members.

Lim, who grew up in a middle-class household in Alhambra, was excited about spending her holiday weekend helping a community in need, rather than staying home and going shopping or to the beach.

“I wanted her to stay home,” said her father, Shi Chol Lim, 52, who owns an auto repair shop in Los Angeles. “I don’t want the kid away from home so many days. But she said it’s a good activity to help the poor people. She insisted. She wanted it. I cannot stop her.”

Lim, who also was on the high school drill team for three years, loved to perform, her father said, and was planning to be a doctor, an obstetrician. She had just been accepted by UC Irvine and was waiting to hear from Stanford University and Brown University--her top choice. She is survived by her parents and two sisters.

Kim, who had two sisters and a brother, lived with her parents in San Gabriel. She was a junior at Cal State Los Angeles and was majoring in early childhood education. She was fluent in Korean and taught Korean-language classes at the church. She also knew some Spanish. During the Tijuana trip, she served as the group’s unofficial interpreter, drawing on three years of high school Spanish classes.

“We were going to sing a song together” with local church members, said an 18-year-old girl who was with the church group. “Susan was teaching us to pronounce the right words in Spanish so we could sing some verses in Spanish.”

“Some people would say she was shy,” the girl added. “But, once she got to know you, she’d go on talking and talking--about different things, what’s going on in the world today, anything and everything.”

Another church member on the trip, 15-year-old Connie Chung of San Marino, was nearly killed in the accident. She was working next to Kim and Lim, helping to dig a ditch at the bottom of a slope 15 feet below the church.

All of a sudden, Chung said, a huge amount of dirt and rocks tumbled on top of them, completely burying the three.

“I heard Susan crying in the beginning,” she said. “Then she was quiet. I heard Eui. I called her name. There was no response after a while.” Chung doesn’t remember anything else; she believes she blacked out before rescue workers found her.

Minutes before the tragedy, Chung and Lim shared a touching moment. After a lunch break of grilled hot dogs, the two girls headed down the hill to resume work.

“Eui was in particularly high spirits,” Chung recalled. “As we went down there after lunch I was talking to her. She was so happy. We gave each other hugs for no reason.”

The two young women will be buried at 10 a.m. Saturday at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier.

On Sunday, Alhambra High School will hold a Celebration of Life memorial program at the auditorium.

Times staff writer Patrick McDonnell contributed to this story.