US student has severe brain damage after North Korea captivity

The U.S. college student who returned from a North Korean prison in a coma has severe brain damage — but doctors said Thursday they are still unaware what caused it.

Doctors said Otto Warmbier, 22, was in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” — but declined to elaborate or discuss his outlook for improvement.

Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, remains in stable condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was taken upon his arrival in Ohio on Tuesday after more than 17 months in North Korean captivity.

His father, Fred Warmbier, met with reporters Thursday, saying, “I’m so proud of Otto, my son, who has been in a pariah regime for the last 18 months, brutalized and terrorized. And he’s now home with his family.”

Otto Warmbier, who had embarked on a group tour to North Korea, was detained in January 2016 trying to fly out of Pyongyang International Airport on suspicion of pilfering a propaganda banner. The student was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for theft and spent most of his imprisonment in a coma.

North Korean officials claimed Warmbier had contracted botulism and ingested a sleeping pill that landed him in a coma — but the family doesn’t buy that account, Fred Warmbier said Thursday.

“Even if you believe their explanation of botulism and a sleeping pill causing a coma, and we don’t, there is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition a secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long,” he added.
President Trump called the student’s parents Wednesday, the father said, describing the talk as “really nice.”

“To be honest, I had avoided conversations with him, because to what end? I’m dealing with my son,” Fred Warmbier said. “But I did take the call, and it was gracious and it felt good, and I thank him for that.” - NY Daily News