A North Korean soldier’s bold attempt to defect by crossing the heavily guarded border with
South Korea galvanized attention this week.
But perhaps more surprising was the disclosure by surgeons struggling to save his life of
what they found while repairing his intestinal wounds: dozens of parasitic worms, some as
long as 11 inches.
In this video, Defense Updates analyzes why the defecting soldier indicates that North
Korea is not ready for war with U.S?
The North Korean soldier drove a jeep into the Joint Security Area, one of the most heavily
guarded portions of the Demilitarized Zone, on Monday.
He then ran across the border to defect to the South while fellow North Korean troops
unleashed a hail of rifle and pistol shots trying to stop him.
He collapsed about 55 yards south of the border, bleeding profusely.
South Korean officers pulled him to safety, and a United States Black Hawk military helicopter
rushed him to a hospital near Seoul, where he underwent a series of surgeries.
This defection was the most dramatic defection from the North in years, making headlines
in South Korea.
But more startling news came from the doctors who were working to clean and patch up his
dietary tract, which was torn by bullets “In my 20 years as a surgeon, I have only
seen something like this in a medical textbook,” said Dr. Lee Cook-jong, a lead surgeon about
the worms in the soldier.
The discovery opened a window on the dire conditions in North Korea, including poor
hygiene and nutrition.
The news shocked many people in prosperous South Korea.
Surgeons raced to save the North Korean soldier, whose name and rank have not been released,
who sustained serious bullet wounds racing across the border while his own troops fired
on him.
“We have found dozens of fully grown parasitic worms in his damaged intestines,’’ said
Dr. Lee Cook-jong, a lead surgeon.
“It was a serious parasitic infection.”
During a news briefing this week, Dr. Lee showed photographs of worms as long as 10
or 11 inches.
Experts in parasitic worms were not surprised, however.
They said that the finding was consistent with the broad sense of conditions in the
isolated, impoverished North.
Defectors to the South have cited the existence of parasites and abysmal nutrition.
Because it lacks chemical fertilizers, North Korea still relies on human excrement to fertilize
its fields, helping parasites to spread, the experts said.
In a 2014 study, South Korean doctors checked a sample of 17 female defectors from North
Korea and found 7 of them infected with parasitic worms.
The soldier’s condition was particularly noteworthy because North Korean soldiers,
especially those deployed near the border with South Korea, receive priority in food
rationing.
Yet, in addition to the parasitic worms, doctors found kernels of corn in his stomach.
Its easy to understand that civilians will be in far worse condition.
More than 30,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since a famine killed more than
a million people in the North in the 1990s.
Since then, international relief agencies have reported widespread malnutrition and
stunted growth among many children in the North.
The wounded soldier, who is believed to be in his late 20s, is 5 feet 5 inches tall and
weighs 132 pounds.
In contrast, an average high school male senior in South Korea is 5 feet 8 inches tall and
weighs 154 pounds.
Napoleon had said: “An army marches on its stomach”.
This is true even today and with this state of affair North Korea will find it very hard
to sustain a war effort against a well organized and well equipped rival.