Originally Posted by Rufus
That was an off the wall comment.
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That was an off the wall comment.
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I remember in the early 80's when PFC White defected to the north from guard post Oulette. His body was sent back about a year later. They claimed he drowned while swimming with his girl friend in the Imjin River.
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No. Korean defector has parasites likely due to poor diet
...
Injured defector's parasites and diet hint at hard life in North Korea
November 17, 2017 - Parasitic worms found in a North Korean soldier, critically injured during a desperate defection, highlight nutrition and hygiene problems that experts say have plagued the isolated country for decades
At a briefing on Wednesday, lead surgeon Lee Cook-jong displayed photos showing dozens of flesh-colored parasites - including one 27 cm (10.6 in) long - removed from the wounded soldier’s digestive tract during a series of surgeries to save his life. “In my over 20 year-long career as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a textbook,” Lee said.
The parasites, along with kernels of corn in his stomach, may confirm what many experts and previous defectors have described about the food and hygiene situation for many North Koreans. “Although we do not have solid figures showing health conditions of North Korea, medical experts assume that parasite infection problems and serious health issues have been prevalent in the country,” said Choi Min-Ho, a professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine who specializes in parasites.
The soldier’s condition was “not surprising at all considering the north’s hygiene and parasite problems,” he said. The soldier was flown by helicopter to hospital on Monday after his dramatic escape to South Korea in a hail of bullets fired by North Korean soldiers.
He is believed to be an army staff sergeant in his mid-20s 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. North Korea has not commented on the defection.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...-idUSKBN1DH0RL
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Defector’s Condition Indicates Serious Health Issues in No. Korea...
Defector’s Condition Indicates Serious Health Issues in North Korea
November 19, 2017 — Parasitic worms found in a North Korean soldier, critically injured during a desperate defection, highlight nutrition and hygiene problems that experts say have plagued the isolated country for decades.
See also:At a briefing Wednesday, lead surgeon Lee Cook-jong displayed photos showing dozens of flesh-colored parasites, including one 27 cm (10.6 in) long, removed from the wounded soldier’s digestive tract during a series of surgeries to save his life. “In my over 20 year-long career as a surgeon, I have only seen something like this in a textbook,” Lee said.
The parasites, along with kernels of corn in his stomach, may confirm what many experts and previous defectors have described about the food and hygiene situation for many North Koreans. “Although we do not have solid figures showing health conditions of North Korea, medical experts assume that parasite infection problems and serious health issues have been prevalent in the country,” said Choi Min-Ho, a professor at Seoul National University College of Medicine who specializes in parasites. The soldier’s condition was “not surprising at all considering the North’s hygiene and parasite problems,” he said.
Hail of bullets
The soldier was flown by helicopter to hospital Monday after his dramatic escape to South Korea in a hail of bullets fired by North Korean soldiers. He is believed to be an army staff sergeant in his mid-20s 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. North Korea has not commented on the defection.
A South Korean soldier runs along a military fence on the road leading to the truce village of Panmunjom at a South Korean military checkpoint in the border city of Paju near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
While the contents of the soldier’s stomach don’t necessarily reflect the population as a whole, his status as a soldier with an elite assignment would indicate he would at least be as well nourished as an average North Korean. He was shot in his buttocks, armpit, back shoulder and knee among other wounds, according to the hospital where the soldier is being treated.
‘The best fertilizer’
Surgeons remove worms, parasites from N. Korean soldier
19 Nov.`17 — Surgeons treating a North Korean soldier who was severely wounded by gunfire while escaping to South Korea have removed dozens of parasites from his body, including presumed roundworms as long as 27 centimeters (11 inches), hospital officials said.
The soldier, whose name and rank have not been disclosed, defected to South Korea last Monday by driving a military jeep near a line that divides the Koreas and then rushing across it under a barrage of bullets. Hospital officials said Saturday that it was too early to tell whether he will make a recovery. While treating the wounds, surgeons found the large parasites, which may be reflective of poor nutrition and health in North Korea’s military, the hospital said. Doctors measured the soldier as being 1.7 meters (5.6 feet) tall, but weighing just 60 kilograms (132 pounds). “I spent more than 20 years of experience as a surgeon, but I have not found parasites this big in the intestines of South Koreans,” Lee Cook-jong, who leads the soldier’s medical team, told reporters last week.
Lee is a famous trauma specialist who was hailed as a hero in 2011 after conducting life-saving surgeries on the captain of a South Korean freighter ship who was shot during a rescue mission after being held by Somali pirates. While the North Korean soldier’s vital signs were stabilizing on Saturday, he continued to remain unconscious and relying on a breathing machine. After consecutive surgeries to repair internal organ damage and other injuries, no further surgeries are planned as of yet, said Shin Mi-jeong, an official at the Ajou University Medical Center near Seoul. South Korea’s military said four North Korean soldiers used handguns and AK rifles to fire about 40 rounds at their former comrade, who was hit at least five times. He was found beneath a pile of leaves on the southern side of the Joint Security Area, and South Korean troops crawled there to recover him. A United Nations Command helicopter later transported him to the Ajou hospital.
It remains unclear whether the North Koreans chasing the soldier fired at him even after he crossed into the southern side of the border, which would be a violation of an armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. The U.N. Command, which is investigating the incident, postponed a plan to release video footage of the soldier’s escape on Thursday. The Joint Security Area is jointly overseen by the American-led U.N. Command and by North Korea, with South Korean and North Korean border guards facing each other only meters (feet) apart. It is located inside the 4-kilometer (2 1/2-mile) -wide Demilitarized Zone, which forms the de facto border between the Koreas since the Korean War.
http://www.newsforum.com/newreply.ph...ote=1&p=201024
roadmaster (11-21-2017)
Senior Member
That is gross waltky, parasites. Something is up Air China indefinitely suspends flights between Beijing and Pyongyang today. In fact all coming from China suspending.
Senior Member
Did anybody catch...
... any reports of `em...
... findin' a Tingler inside him?
North Korea defector video shows getaway under fire...
North Korea defector regains consciousness, video shows getaway under fire
November 21, 2017 - North Korean border guards were only steps behind a fellow North Korean soldier when they opened fire and one briefly crossed the border pursuing the wounded defector as he dashed to the South Korean side, a video released on Wednesday by the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul showed.
See also:The defector was critically wounded, having been hit at least four times in the hail of bullets as he made his desperate escape on Nov.13. He was flown by a U.S. military helicopter to a hospital in Suwon, south of Seoul. Doctors announced on Wednesday that he had regained consciousness, having had two operations to extract the bullets, and his breathing was stable and unassisted. “He is fine,” lead surgeon Lee Cook-Jong said at a press conference in Suwon. “He is not going to die.” A UNC official said North Korea had been informed on Wednesday that it had violated the 1953 armistice agreement, which marked the cessation of hostilities in the Korean War.
The UNC official told a news conference that a soldier from the North Korean People’s Army (KPA) had crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), the border between the two Koreas, for a few seconds as others fired shots at the defecting soldier. “The key findings of the special investigation team are that the KPA violated the armistice agreement by one, firing weapons across the MDL, and two, by actually crossing the MDL temporarily,” Chad Carroll, Director of Public Affairs for the UNC, told reporters. The incident comes at a time of heightened tensions between North Korea and the international community over its nuclear weapons program, but Pyongyang has not publicly responded to the high-profile defection at the sensitive border.
DESPERATE ESCAPE
The dramatic video begins with a lone 4x4 army jeep speeding along empty, tree-lined roads toward the border. At one checkpoint, a North Korean guard marches impassively toward the approaching vehicle, but then runs in pursuit as it races by. After passing a memorial to North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, where tourists often gather for tours of the Joint Security Area (JSA) inside the demilitarized zone, the jeep ran into a ditch just meters from the border with the South. For several minutes the driver tried to try to free the vehicle, but the wheels spun uselessly in fallen leaves. The driver finally abandoned the vehicle and sprinted for his life, pushing tree branches out of his way and sending leaves flying. He scrambled up slightly rising ground to cross the border just seconds before at least four of the guards appear, their guns blazing as they ran. One pursuing guard slid into a pile of dead leaves to open fire before running forward and appearing to briefly cross the dividing line between the two countries before turning around.
The video does not show the moment when the defector was hit, but he is seen lying motionless in a pile of brush next to a concrete wall in one of the later edited clips in the video. Carroll said the position was still exposed to North Korean checkpoints across the border. The allied troops operating the CCTV cameras that captured the incident had by then notified their commanders and a quick reaction force had assembled on the South Korean side of the border, according to Carroll, though the video did not show this force. Infrared imagery shows two South Korean troops crawling through undergrowth to drag the wounded North Korean to safety, while the deputy commander of the border security unit oversees the rescue from a few meters away.
LONG RECOVERY
Once inside Kim Jong Un's inner circle, top aide's star fades
November 21, 2017 - When Kim Jong Un sat down in September to order the sixth and largest of North Korea’s nuclear tests, Hwang Pyong So sat by his side, his khaki military uniform conspicuous among the suits at the table, photos released by state media at the time showed.
Now Hwang, once one of Kim’s most-trusted advisers, is facing unspecified punishment on the orders of another man who also sat at that exclusive table in September, Choe Ryong Hae, South Korean intelligence officials believe. Information on North Korea is often difficult to obtain, and with few hard details and no official confirmation from Pyongyang, analysts said it was too soon to draw any firm conclusions from the unspecified punishments. But the moves, which appear to involve two of Kim’s top four advisers, are being closely watched for indications of fractures within his secretive inner circle, and come as North Korea faces increasing international pressure over its nuclear weapons program.
Having his advisers compete with each other suits Kim just fine, said Christopher Green, an analyst with the Crisis Group. “It is hardwired into autocracy to have underlings in competition,” he said. Hwang, a shy, bespectacled general in his mid-60s, is a close confidant of Kim Jong Un and has had an unprecedented rise to the top rungs of North Korea’s leadership in the space of a few years. In 2014, he became one of the most powerful people outside the ruling Kim family when he was named chief of the General Political Bureau of the army, a powerful position that mobilizes the military for the leader. His apparent punishment takes on additional meaning as it was orchestrated by Choe who has competed with Hwang in the past and stands to gain from any demotion, according to South Korea’s spy agency.
TEA WITH THE ENEMY
The two men were last seen in public together early last month as they watched a gymnastics gala, according to state media. Hwang has since faded from public view, whereas Choe was the ranking official who met with a senior envoy from China in Pyongyang last week. Kim has not shied away from removing or punishing even favored leaders who could become powerful enough to threaten his grip on power, said Michael Madden, an expert on the North Korean leadership at 38 North, a project of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Studies in Washington. “Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong So could not have continued in the capacity that he was operating in, without it coming back to bite him,” he said. Both Hwang and Choe came to South Korea during the Asian Games in 2014 - the highest such visit by North Korean officials to the rival South.
Dressed in a drab, olive army uniform and his large officer’s cap, Hwang, who had been promoted to the No.2 spot behind Kim just one week earlier, had tea and lunch with Choe and South Korean officials and waved to crowds at the games’ closing ceremony. The trip had been announced just one day in advance and took many South Korean observers by surprise. Some suggested there may have been a power struggle between the two men, neither wanting to yield the high-profile visit to the other. Choe, who was subjected to political “reeducation” himself in the past, now appears to be gaining more influence since he was promoted in October to the party’s powerful Central Military Commission, according to South Korean officials. The National Intelligence Service indicated Choe now heads the Organisation and Guidance Department (OGD), the secretive body which oversees appointments within North Korea’s leadership.
‘CLIPPING WINGS’
Last edited by waltky; 11-22-2017 at 02:36 AM.
Senior Member
Real life James Bond movie...
Stunning CCTV Footage Shows North Korean Defector Being Shot By Border Guards
November 22, 2017 • United Nations Command on Tuesday released dramatic footage of a North Korean soldier defecting from his country and fleeing south across the Demilitarized Zone last week only to be fired upon by his fellow border guards.
See also:Video captured by closed circuit television shows the moments the unnamed soldier, thought to be in his 20s, sped through the DMZ in a jeep past North Korean checkpoints as he was pursued by guards carrying weapons. The jeep later veered into a ditch before the soldier jumped out and ran across the border, where four of his comrades can be seen firing upon him. South Korean soldiers quickly moved to rescue the soldier and bring him to safety.
The man was shot at least five times and is in critical condition at a South Korean hospital. Doctors said Wednesday he had regained consciousness after having two operations to remove bullets from his body, according to Reuters. “He is fine,” Lee Cook-Jong, the lead surgeon, said at a news conference. “He is not going to die.”
United Nations Command on Tuesday released dramatic footage of a North Korean soldier defecting from his country and fleeing south across the Demilitarized Zone last week only to be fired upon by his fellow border guards.
The Washington Post notes one of the pursuing North Korean soldiers can be seen on camera crossing the Military Demarcation Line between the two Koreas, a violation of the armistice agreement signed at the end of the Korean War in 1953. U.N. Command also said the North violated the agreement by firing across the MDL. “UNC personnel at the [Joint Security Area] notified [the North’s Korean People’s Army] of these violations today through normal communications channel in Panmunjom and requested a meeting to discuss the investigation results and measures to prevent future such violations,” U.N. Command told the Post in a statement.
Such a defection at the heavily armed DMZ is rare, and a soldier has not done so at the Joint Security Area since 2007, according to The New York Times. Thousands of North Koreans have defected in the past decades, although most travel through China. The Associated Press last week reported that doctors had to remove dozens of parasites, including intestinal worms as long as 10 inches, from the soldier while he was in the hospital. Some have said the health of the man reflects the ongoing humanitarian crisis within North Korea, which often struggles to feed its own people.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/stunning-...053359998.html
North Korea's wounded defector 'nice guy', says surgeon
November 23, 2017 - North Korea's latest defector, a young soldier known only by his family name Oh, is a quiet, pleasant man who has nightmares about being returned to the North, his surgeon said on Thursday.
“He’s a pretty nice guy,” said lead surgeon John Cook-Jong Lee, who has been operating and caring for the 24-year-old. Oh has become a focus of worldwide attention after he was badly wounded by fellow North Korean soldiers as he scrambled across the border in the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South on Nov. 13. Video of Oh’s escape released on Wednesday showed him stumbling over the border and being dragged unconscious through the undergrowth by South Korean troops. Surgeon Lee has been almost the only person to speak with Oh since he arrived at the hospital, he told Reuters in an interview at his office at Ajou University Hospital, just a few floors away from where the defector lies guarded by South Korean special forces and intelligence officers. The surgeon, who has hung a South Korean flag in the soldier’s room, said he is avoiding subjects that may disturb his patient. Oh is eating his first “clear liquid” food such as broths, and can smile, talk, and use his hands, Lee said. But when his patient woke on Sunday he cried out in pain, and Lee said he is still anxious about the South Korean guards.
Lee said Oh told him that he had joined the North Korean army when he was 17, right after secondary school graduation. The soldier’s hair is styled “like a jarhead, like a U.S. Marine, so I actually joked ‘why don’t you join the South Korean Marines?’ He smiled and said that he would never ever go back to the military system again.” Medical teams have worked for days to remove the shards of at least four bullets from Oh’s body, stitch up his shredded organs, and treat pre-existing conditions including tuberculosis, hepatitis B, and a case of massive intestinal worms, Lee said. “He’s a quite strong man,” said Lee. Since Oh’s defection, North Korea appeared to have replaced all its security guards on the border, an intelligence source in the South told Yonhap news agency on Thursday.
COLLAPSED LUNG
Lee said that when the defector arrived in an American military helicopter at the hospital – which is equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment and is used to treat VIP visitors such as visiting U.S. presidents - he came with zero personal information. On the flight in, American army flight medics had fought to keep Oh alive, jabbing a large needle into his chest to treat a collapsed lung. Oh was immediately wheeled into a diagnostic room where doctors confirmed he was suffering from massive internal bleeding. “We knew then that we didn’t have time to hesitate,” Lee said, standing in that room Thursday night.
Two major surgeries were required to remove the bullets and patch Oh back together, and the medical team pumped as much as 12 liters of new blood into his body. The normal body has less than half as much blood. “He told me that he is so thankful for South Koreans for saving his life and giving him that much blood,” Lee said. Lee has been playing South Korean pop music and American films and TV shows for his patient, but has not exposed him to any news coverage. Among the shows, Oh showed a liking for the French-American thriller “Transporter 3,” comedy “Bruce Almighty” starring Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman; and the crime-solving TV series “CSI,” Lee said.
SCARS
Last edited by waltky; 11-23-2017 at 02:38 PM.
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I did two tours on the DMZ and saw several people killed by the NKs.
ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
Senior Member
This is one of his soldiers that was riddled with parasites and disease. You would think that he would at least keep his soldiers healthy so they are able to fight for him. I wonder what the health status of the entire population is right now.
Senior Member
Not good I'd bet. I heard that the poor soul who was willing to give up his life in an attempt to be free was eating good food in the hospital and watching the latest American movies. Welcome to a whole new world!
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