Taeyeon mired in favouritism controversy over prompt medical attention after crash
SEOUL: Taeyeon of Girls‘ Generation is mired in a controversy that following a crash, she had received faster medical attention from paramedics because of her celebrity status.
She had caused a multiplevehicle accident after driving her Mercedes Benz into a taxi at a stop light on Tuesday night.
The impact caused the taxi to crash into an Audi vehicle, also at a stop, that was in front of it.
Police said that Taeyeon had not been driving under the influence of alcohol.
The accident injured the two cab passengers and the driver of the Audi. The singer was uninjured, and publicists at her agency S.M. Entertainment apologised to the victims.
However, a controversy has ensued when a person claiming to be one of the two passengers alleged that the paramedics gave Taeyeon preferential treatment.
“I don’t know if it was because the she is famous, but (paramedics) wanted to carry her off to the hospital first and told us, the victims, to wait,” the alleged cab passenger wrote on an Instagram page, with a photo of the crash.
The person added that the rescue workers shrugged off the taxi driver’s injury as “just a scratch” and refused to let him sit in the ambulance.
Gangnam Fire Station, which dispatched the rescue workers to the scene, later said that the rescuers took care of Taeyeon first because they believed her condition to be more severe.
Taeyeon’s publicists have yet to comment on the accusations of favouritism.