The surgeon who saved the life of a North Korean defector after he had been shot four times during a mad dash across the border has spoken of the moment the soldier was airlifted into his hospital.
Lee Cook-Jong described 24-year-old Oh Chong Song as ‘like a broken jar’, saying the medical team at the Seoul hospital had to keep carrying out blood transfusions as he was losing so much.
Oh had been shot four times as he ran across the border, and Dr Lee also found that his body was riddled with parasites and Hepatitis B.
Saving a life: A video shows the moment the 24-year-old soldier arrived at a hospital in Seoul after he was shot four times defecting from North Korea
‘His vital signs were so unstable, he was dying of low blood pressure, he was dying of shock,’ Dr Lee told CNN.
‘He was like a broken jar. We couldn’t put enough blood into him.’
Oh had been shot in his knee, arm, back and chest through his shoulder, but despite his serious injuries, the team at the hospital saved his life.
The hepatitis B and the parasites – some more than 10 inches long – found in his body highlight nutrition and hygiene problems that experts say have plagued North Korea for decades.
‘In my over 20 year-long career as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a textbook,’ Dr Lee said shortly after the soldier defected
Injuries: Surgeon Lee Cook-jong stands next to a mannequin showing where the North Korean soldier had been struck by bullets
Shocking: Oh had been shot in his knee, arm, back and chest through his shoulder, and his body was riddled with parasides
Doctor Lee Cook-jong said some of the parasites found in the North Korean soldier’s digestive tract were as long as 10 inches
Oh made his dash over the border at the Panmunjom truce village on November 13.
He is believed to be an army staff sergeant who was stationed in the Joint Security Area in the United Nations truce village of Panmunjom, according to Kim Byung-kee, a lawmaker of South Korea’s ruling party, briefed by the National Intelligence Service.
Footage from his brave dash across the border shows his former comrades opening fire at him as he races on foot over the painted line that divides the two countries.
He was shot at least four times in his daring bid, and was found by South Korean troops slumped in a pile of leaves just south of the border.
After being dragged to safety, he was airlifted to hospital, where he underwent two rounds of emergency surgery.
North Korea is accused violating an armistice agreement after its soldiers fired across the line that divides North and South Korea while chasing after a defecting North Korean solider (pictured, making a dash across between the two Koreas)
Oh showed signs of depression and possible trauma when he woke up in the hospital. Continuing stress made the soldier hesitant to talk, but he had been cooperative, doctors said.
Durign his recovery, he has been watching the action driving flick ‘The Transporter’ and U.S. TV show ‘CSI’, and can’t get enough of K-Pop, doctors say.
On average more than 1,000 North Koreans defect to the South every year, but most travel via China and numbers have fallen since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011.
It is unusual for a North Korean to cross the land border dividing the two Koreas. They have been in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The last time a North Korean soldier had defected across the JSA was in 2007.