American student freed by North Korea has brain damage, doctors say

Doctors assigned to 22-year-old American student Otto Warmbier who was held by North Korea authorities for 17 months, have revealed that the University undergraduate has severe brain injury and is in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”.

“Otto is showing no sign of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surrounding,” said Dr. Daniel Kanter, medical director of the neuroscience intensive care unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

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Continuing, Dr. Kanter Warmbier said Otto was breathing on his own; “He has not spoken,” Kanter said at a news conference. “He has not engaged in any purposeful movements or behaviours.”

Otto, from Wyoming, Ohio was visiting North Korea with a tour group when he was arrested last year for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan.

He has been in a coma since March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in North Korea, his family said.

 

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