N. Korea releases US student
Held for 17 months, Warmbier, 22, in coma has brain damage
WYOMING, Ohio — An American college student who emerged from prison in North Korea in a coma has severe brain damage, but doctors do not know what caused it, a medical team treating him in Ohio said Thursday.
The doctors described Otto Warmbier, 22, as being in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” but declined to discuss his outlook for improvement, saying such information would be kept confidential.
“He has spontaneous eye opening and blinking,” said Dr. Daniel Kanter, director of neurocritical care for the University of Cincinnati Health system. “However, he shows no signs of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surroundings. He has not spoken.”
Warmbier is in stable condition at the UC Medical Center, where he was taken after his arrival in Ohio late Tuesday after more than 17 months in North Korean captivity. The reclusive country accused the University of Virginia student of anti-state activities.
His father, Fred Warmbier, met with reporters earlier in the day and said the family was proud of Otto, calling him “a fighter.”
The elder Warmbier said he did not believe North Korea’s explanation that the coma resulted from botulism and a sleeping pill. U.S. doctors said they found no evidence of active botulism, a rare, serious illness caused by contaminated food or a dirty wound.
He said there was no reason for North Korea to keep his son’s condition secret for more than a year and to deny him top medical care. Warmbier’s condition apparently deteriorated shortly after he was sentenced in March 2016.
Kanter said the youth suffered “extensive loss of brain tissue in all regions of the brain.” Doctors said his injuries are consistent with respiratory arrest cutting off oxygen to the brain, but they are not certain what caused it.
The family feels “relief Otto is now home in the arms of those who love him and anger that he was so brutally treated for so long,” his father said at Wyoming High School, where Warmbier graduated.
To honor his son, Fred Warmbier wore the same jacket Otto wore when North Korea presented him before the media on Feb. 29, 2016, at an event where he tearfully confessed that he tried to steal a propaganda banner while visiting the country.