In the fall of 2002, Kim Dong Wan's manager was driving the Shinhwa singer and his 20-year-old coordinator Kim Yoo Sun to one of a long stream of promotional engagements.

At 5:15 a.m., the car crashed into the back of a three-ton truck, killing the 20-year-old girl at the scene, according to the website Soompi.

The driver sustained major injuries.

Kim Dong Wan, who was 23 years old at the time, was alone in the back seat at the time of the accident. He suffered painful injuries to his back and neck.

But the real agony, he said, came from his years of guilt about the accident.

In an interview Tuesday for the South Korean television program "Baek Ji Yeon's People Inside" the K-pop star described living with the feeling that it was his rigorous schedule that led to Kim Yoo Sun's death.

"The thought that pressed me the most at the time was, 'Who am I that people have to undergo such difficult schedules and risk their lives?'" Kim Dong Wan said.

"In a way, the staff member died because of me. I didn't work for a while and didn't want to work under those conditions...I was going through a really difficult time."

The Shinwa singer is still haunted by the idea that he and his colleagues were on the road that morning because of his career.

"Even as I was filming a drama recently, I felt like my lifespan was decreasing from the busy working environment. I thought to myself, 'Who am I to make these people have to carry out such difficult tasks?'" he recalled.

"Honestly, I am still affected by it."

Kim Dong Wan is not the only member of Shinwa to be involved in a car accident in recent years.

In 2006, Shinhwa bandleader Eric Mun injured his spine and ankle after getting into an accident in downtown Seoul.

The band was forced to cancel a television performance on South Korean television scheduled for that night.

And on Christmas Eve 2010, Lee Minwoo suffered injuries to his neck, back and ankle as well a concussion after his friend's car slid on some ice near the Yongpyeong Resort in South Korea's Gangwon Province.

Like Kim Dong Wan, Lee's injuries were minimized because he was in the back seat. His friends suffered spinal, ankle and rib fractures.

According to local authorities at the site of the accident, the singer and his friends were lucky to be alive, considering their car was totaled and roughly one car length away from falling over a cliff.

"In an accident where his imported car was completely wrecked, they are lucky to have survived," the officer said.