As they climbed the plane’s stairs they heard an inhuman howl: US student’s parents denounce North Korea
The parents of Otto Warmbier, who died soon after being released from North Korean captivity, have described their harrowing reunion for the first time
The parents of a young Ohio man who was detained in North Korea for more than a year and died soon after being released said Tuesday he was “jerking violently,” howling, and “staring blankly” when he returned home on a medical flight.
Fred and Cindy Warmbier appeared on Fox News’ Fox & Friends morning TV show amid an escalating war of words between the Trump administration and North Korea. A North Korean official has claimed US President Donald Trump has, in effect, declared war, which the White House denied.
“North Korea is not a victim. They’re terrorists,” he said. “They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims.”
The parents described the condition his family found him in when they went aboard an air ambulance that arrived June 13 in Cincinnati.
“When we got halfway up the steps [of the plane] we heard this howling, involuntary, inhuman sound,” said Fred Warmbier. “We looked in and Otto was on the stretcher across in the plane and he was jerking violently, making these inhuman sounds.”
They said Otto, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, had a shaved head, a feeding tube out of his nose and “was staring blankly into space”. He was blind and deaf and “it looked like someone had taken a pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”
“We weren’t prepared ... no mother, no parent should ever have gone through what we went through,” Cindy Warmbier said. She said it was “inexcusable” that her son had been alone in captivity for so long with no one to comfort him. She said she “got it together” and stayed with him after his arrival.
President Trump tweeted about the family’s appearance, calling it “a great interview” and that: “Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.”
Fred Warmbier also said Otto had a large scar on his right foot and a high fever.
He died less than a week after returning at University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Doctors there said he arrived in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” and had suffered a “severe neurological injury” of uncertain cause.
North Korea has denied mistreating the youth, sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in March 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. He was arrested that January as he prepared to leave the country after visiting as a tourist.
