ESCAPE FROM NORTH KOREA
Defecting soldier’s desperate dash as bullets fly
Dramatic new video shows a North Korean soldier defecting from the Hermit Kingdom last week — including the fusillade of gunfire that left him with five bullet wounds.
The escapee, who has been identified only by his surname, Oh, is recovering in a South Korean hospital, where he watches American TV shows and listens to Korean pop music, Seoul officials said.
The video footage, provided by the United Nations, opens with Oh barreling down a tree-lined North Korean roadway in a Jeep at about 3:11 p.m. on Nov. 13.
He reaches what appears to be a checkpoint and briefly slows down, before gunning the engine and leaving in his dust a soldier who pursues him on foot.
Oh’s Jeep gets stuck in a ravine as he nears the Military Demarcation Line — the national border within the larger demilitarized zone separating the North and South — and he runs off.
But soldiers from the North catch up and open fire on him, unleashing what South Korean offi- cials estimate was about 40 shots from Kalashnikovs and handguns.
One of the pursuing soldiers can be seen briefly crossing the MDL, setting foot on the South Korea side himself before thinking better of it and scurrying back to his side.
Crossing and firing shots across the line violated an armistice between the two nations, according to the UN Command.
Next, Oh can be seen lying wounded in a pile of leaves behind a low concrete wall.
Then, at 3:55 p.m., infrared footage shows South Korean soldiers crawling up to him and dragging him out of the DMZ, after which a UN Command helicopter flew him 50 miles to Ajou University Medical Center near Seoul.
Doctors operated on wounds to Oh’s right hip, shoulder and knee, as well as the left side of his back and shoulder, the Korea Herald reported. They performed a second surgery two days later.
“The patient will not die,” hospital surgeon Lee Cook-jong said Wednesday. “But he is showing signs of depression due to much stress from the gunshot injuries and two major surgeries.”
To treat the depression, caretakers hung a South Korean flag over Oh’s bed and are trying to buoy his spirits with the TV and pop music, Lee said.
“We played him three versions of Girls’ Generation’s ‘Gee’ — the original version, the rock version and the indie-band version — and he said he likes the original version the best and that he loves girl groups,” Lee told the Yonhap News Agency.
“We showed him a cable TV movie channel, and he said he likes the American drama ‘CSI’ and American films.”
The hospital is also treating the soldier for hepatitis B, tuberculosis — and 10 ¹/2-inch-long parasitic worms.
He was able to breathe on his own after three days in South Korea’s care, but it will be another month before he is recovered enough to be interrogated.
North Korea typically claims defections are actually kidnappings by South Koreans, but it has been silent on this escape and on the video showing the defector’s desperation to flee the regime.