Otto Warmbier’s parents have revealed for the first time the horrific state he was in when he returned from North Korea after being tortured into a coma.
They say their 22-year-old son was blind, deaf and had mangled teeth when they first laid eyes on him after he was brought back to the US following his brutal 17 months imprisonment at the hands of Kim Jong Un’s regime.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier told Fox News on Tuesday that they heard a ‘howling’ sound when they walked up the steps of the private medical plane carrying their son after it landed Cincinnati, Ohio back on June 13.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier have revealed the horrific state their 22-year-old son Otto was in when he returned from North Korea after being tortured into a coma
‘We walked over to the plane, the engines are still humming, they had just landed…when we got halfway up the steps we heard this howling, involuntary, inhuman sound. We weren’t really certain what it was,’ Fred said.
They quickly realized it was their son Otto as he screamed and jerked violently on a stretcher.
‘Otto had a shaved head, he had a feeding tube coming out of his nose, he was staring blankly into space, jerking violently,’ Fred said.
‘He was blind. He was deaf. As we looked at him and tried to comfort him it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.’
Cindy said they were only told their son had suffered brain damaged and the reality of his injuries were much more severe than they could ever have imagined.
‘So what we pictured, because we’re optimists, is that Otto would be asleep and maybe in a medically induced coma and then when our doctors here would work with him and he’d get the best care and love that he would come out of it,’ she said.
His parents said Otto spent his final days jerking and moaning in the tortured state before he died at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center on June 19.
The University of Virginia student was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years hard labour in North Korea after he was accused of stealing a propaganda poster.
North Korean officials claimed that Otto had contracted botulism – a form of food poisoning – a day after he was jailed and that is what caused his medical decline.
‘North Korea is not a victim, they are terrorists. They purposefully and intentionally injured Otto,’ Fred said on Tuesday.
In March 2016, Otto was led away by North Korean police after being sentenced to 15 years hard labour. North Korean officials say the following day, he contracted botulism – a form of food poisoning – and that this is what caused his medical decline