For North Korean soldier’s recovery, South Koreans are pinning their hopes on this medical professional

TOKYO — No medical drama is finished and not using a bold-yet-sensitive heartthrob doctor in a number one function. The brilliant tale of a North Korean soldier's get away throughout the demilitarized zone closing week isn't any exception.

The McDreamy during this case is Lee cook-jong, the trauma surgeon who has operated on the soldier a few times and supplied updates along the manner — together with a video displaying Lee settling on 10-inch-long parasitic worms out of the man's intestines and his declaration Wednesday that the defector will live on.

"The affected person isn't going to die," Lee informed journalists at Ajou school hospital south of Seoul, saying that the man had regained recognition and changed into stable.

besides the fact that children he remains in the intensive care unit, he may well be transferred to a conventional ward as quickly as this weekend.

The 24-12 months-old North Korean soldier, who has been recognized best with the aid of his surname, Oh, become shot five instances as he made his brazen get away Nov. 13. 

A North Korean soldier drove a jeep across the heavily guarded border with South Korea on Nov. 13. He became shot through other North Korean troopers before South Korean and American forces recovered him and dragged him to protection. He remains hospitalized. The footage turned into launched via the U.S. military. (u.s. Forces Korea)

Closed-circuit tv footage launched through the U.S. militia on Wednesday confirmed Oh riding a jeep southward earlier than the car grew to be caught in a ditch yards from the militia Demarcation Line that varieties the border.

Oh jumped out and started operating for the road. four North Korean border guards tried to cease him, firing greater than forty rounds at him. One preserve briefly crossed the line, violating the armistice that ended the Korean war in 1953.

The video confirmed Oh mendacity wounded in a pile of leaves against a building on the southern aspect. Then three South Korean troopers crawled out and dragged him to protection.

From there, he turned into put in a U.S. army Black Hawk helicopter and flown 50 miles south to the health center in Suwon, the place Lee become waiting.

"If it weren't for their emergency measures, he would have died earlier than arriving on the clinic," Lee stated.

[ Dramatic video shows North Korean soldier making a run for freedom ]

It turned into nevertheless contact-and-go when Oh arrived on the sanatorium. His blood power become so low after dropping so tons blood that the docs didn't even have time to investigate his blood type. as a substitute, they pumped about 40 contraptions — between three and four instances the quantity of blood contained in a human body — of class O into him.

He has had three surgical procedures, including an attempt to repair his broken internal organs and prevent the contamination caused by means of the parasites and the accidents.

through it all, the trauma surgeon, commonly in scrubs, has been giving normal updates on the soldier's circumstance.

The revelation that the person had a extreme parasitic an infection — Lee noted he had in no way seen the sort of case except in medical textbooks — and that his belly contained raw corn kernels precipitated common shock in South Korea. North Korean entrance-line troopers were speculated to be elite troops, yet this man had worms not viewed in South Korea since the 1970s and had been consuming raw corn?

Oh also has tuberculosis and hepatitis B, Lee mentioned. And, at 5 toes 5 inches tall and weighing about 130 kilos, he's a few inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than the normal male 18-year-ancient South Korean.

there is intense hobby in the soldier, and military intelligence officers reportedly are desperate to question him about his get away, however Lee has been fending them off. The soldier is showing signs of depression and post-stressful stress, and it'll take a few month earlier than he is smartly adequate to reply questions, the medical professional mentioned.

For now, Lee is holding the conversation mild — talking in regards to the approach issues are finished in South Korea as opposed to asking him about North Korea — and making an attempt to cheer him up.

The scientific team of workers played him "Gee," a peppy pop music by using girls' era — featuring lyrics comparable to, "Oh, it's too relatively, your soul's too relatively/It's love firstly sight" — and he declared that he favored girl bands.

Lee also talked about Oh has been gazing the American television collection "CSI" and the motion film "The Transporter," in which a former particular-forces operative hires himself out as a mercenary. 

The body of workers also has hung a South Korean flag in his room to reassure him he in reality is within the South.

[ Escaped North Korean soldier fights for life after being shot crossing DMZ ]

here is no longer Lee's first time within the highlight. The surgeon became a national hero in 2011 when he saved the lifetime of a ship captain who had been shot by way of Somali pirates.

After pirates seized a chemical freighter near the Gulf of Aden in 2011, South Korean commandos stormed the ship and the pirates shot the captain six times right through the rescue attempt. 

Lee become waiting at a health center in Oman and saved the captain's lifestyles, incomes a popularity because the country's leading trauma surgeon. There turned into even a favored medical drama in keeping with this story, "Golden Time." The title become a reference to Lee's customary reminder that it's the hour after a severe injury it really is most critical for saving a person's life. 

The 48-12 months-historical Lee, who is blind in a single eye and admired for working 36-hour shifts, become also the proposal for a personality in a further drama, "Romantic medical professional, teacher Kim," released ultimate year. He became such a celeb that even octogenarians with diabetes were making an attempt to get in to look him.

Lee became a physician in South Korea however expert as a important-care surgeon on the tuition of California at San Diego medical middle in 2003. He then went on to the Royal London clinic's trauma core.

Returning domestic, he realized that there was no equal facility at any clinic in South Korea and estimated that about 30,000 trauma sufferers were dying within the country each 12 months on account of medication delays and a scarcity of committed trauma units.

He persuaded authorities to fund relevant trauma centers, together with his unit at Ajou institution medical institution. Now, 20 p.c of revenue from traffic fines goes to trauma facilities within the country.

[ American detained trying to enter North Korea; North Korean soldier escapes to the South ]

but for a trauma surgeon, Lee faces a crisis that is unimaginable for American ER doctors: He seldom receives to deal with gunshot wounds, because South Korea has very strict suggestions on gun possession. 

Ten murders with a firearm were said in South Korea between 2010 and 2015, in comparison with 8,592 in the u.s., in line with figures from the Small hands Survey.

as an alternative, the particularly few gunshot wounds he has handled have been sustained by using South Korean and U.S. troopers damage all the way through military drills, he informed the Korea times in 2015. still, that looks to were ample observe to store the North Korean soldier's lifestyles.  

Now, South Koreans are expecting Lee's subsequent statement on the soldier's prognosis. 

In online forums, South Korean "netizens" had been sending their most beneficial desires to Lee and his patient.

"A Korean who put his existence on the line to pass over to the south. with a bit of luck he can be saved!" wrote one in an online medical forum.

a different brought, "Please live to tell the tale so you can are living in South Korea!"

read extra:

What the parasites in a defector's abdominal inform us about North Korea

image: This skinny ribbon of land separates North and South Korea

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