The North Korean solider identified only as "Oh" who was shot multiple times as he fled Kim Jong Un's regime for a life of freedom has not only been found to have medical issues doctors haven't seen, but he's also afraid that he'll be sent back.
The 24-year-old soldier escaped two weeks ago after abandoning his post and making a run for it in an incident that was partially recorded.
Although Oh suffered multiple gunshot wounds during his escape, he is recovering. The thing he fears the most is being sent back to North Korea, the New York Post reported.
He has been assured that will not happen.
While surgeons were disturbed to discover that Oh also had tuberculosis and hepatitis B, the 10-inch parasitic worms they removed from his intestines took these doctors to uncharted territory, CNN reported.
“In my 20 years as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a medical textbook,” surgeon Lee Cook-Jong said. “He’s quite a strong man.”
The lead surgeon in South Korea said Oh is "not going to die" from his wounds, ABC News reported.
Doctors were also vexed by the raw corn kernels in Oh's stomach, according to the Washington Post.
Officials in South Korea said that Oh's escape took place two Mondays ago after the North Korean guard abandoned his post and tried to escape. CNN reported that this was the third defection of a North Korean soldier this year and that there had only been four such defections in the past five years.
"The defector was urgently transferred to hospital in a helicopter of the United Nations Command, and there was no exchange of fire with our side," a South Korean ministry official told Reuters. "Since it was an area exposed to the North, we had to crawl toward there to get him out."
ABC News also noted that it appeared North Korea violated the 1953 Armistice Agreement signed by the U.N., North Korea and China by firing guns across the military demarcation line (MDL) and by physically crossing the line.
Earlier Saturday, it was reported that Kim Jong Un has already "replaced" the border guards who fired on Oh but allowed him to escape.
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