The North Korean soldier who was shot multiple times fleeing into South Korea at the border has regained consciousness, according to South Korean reports.
“Is this actually South Korea? I want to hear South Korean songs,” the man said after waking up in a South Korean medical facility, presumably curious as to whether or not he made it to the South, the Dong-a Ilbo introduced. The medical staff hung the South Korean flag in the man’s hospital room to comfort him, Yonhap News Agency revealed.
The suspected staff sergeant in his 20s made a mad dash into the South in the Joint Security Area at the Demilitarized Zone last Monday. His comrades, apparently using weaponry not permitted in the JSA, opened fire on the defector. Amid a barrage of bullets, the young man’s brazen blitz was successful.
After collapsing in a pile of leaves, he was rescued by South Korean military personnel and airlifted to Ajou University Hospital in Suwon, South Korea, where he underwent two major surgeries to remove the bullets, pull roundworms from the man’s intestine, and combat infection, blood poisoning, and Hepatitis B. (RELATED: Doctors Found Parasites They’d Never Seen Before Inside The North Korean Soldier Who Bolted At The DMZ)
The man appears to be recovering, but he is not quite out of the woods just yet.
“The soldier has regained consciousness and he requested to watch television,” a South Korean government official revealed to the Yonhap News Agency. “For the soldier’s psychological comfort, we’ve shown the patient South Korean movies and he has recovered enough to watch television.”
“The defector is able to express his thoughts to medical staff,” the official explained, “At this moment, we think that the patient has overcome a serious condition, [but] the defector is suffering from fear and heavy stress from the gunshots that wounded him.” The medical personnel tasked with the soldier’s care are treating mental scars as well as physical ailments.
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