To North Korea and back: Otto Warmbier's strange, sad trip

Over and over, Otto Warmbier apologized and begged — at first calmly, then choking up and finally in tears — to be reunited with his family.

North Korean officials seated at long tables watched impassively, with cameras rolling and journalists taking notes, as the adventuresome, accomplished 21-year-old college student from suburban Cincinnati talked animatedly about the "severe crime" that had put him there: trying to take a propaganda banner for someone back home, supposedly in return for a used car and to impress a semi-secret society he wanted to join, and all under the supposed direction of the U.S. government.

"I have made the worst mistake of my life!" he exclaimed as his formally staged Feb. 29, 2016, "confession" to anti-state activities ended in Pyongang.

More than 15 months later, he has finally been reunited with his parents and two younger siblings.

Whether he is even aware of that is uncertain.

"His neurological condition can be best described as a state of unresponsive wakefulness," said Dr. Daniel Kanter, director of neurocritical care for the University of Cincinnati Health system. Doctors say he has suffered "severe neurological injury," with extensive loss of brain tissue and "profound weakness and contraction" of his muscles, arms and legs. His eyes will open and blink, but without signs of understanding verbal commands or his surroundings.


Warmbier, now 22, remains hospitalized at the UC Medical Center immediately after his arrival late Tuesday aboard a medevac flight following North Korea's decision to release him for what it called humanitarian reasons — and under strong pressure after the Trump administration learned of his condition in a special U.S. envoy's June 6 meeting in New York with North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations.

His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, were told he had been in a coma since shortly after being sentenced March 16, 2016, to 15 years of prison with hard labor.

If life had gone to plan, he today would be in his first month as a new graduate of the University of Virginia.

He had planned to study abroad in his third year of college in China and heard about Chinese travel companies offering trips to North Korea. His parents were OK with it.

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This is very sad. At least he got to come home before he died.

You play with fire you get burned! Not sure why anyone would go to North Korea in the first place, but that's the last place you would ever want to cause trouble. And then to make it a big political event and expect the government to bail him out is ridiculous. When Americans travel to unfriendly country as far as I'm concerned they are on their own and the US government shouldn't have to pay to bail them out, or get into a political battle over it.

You play with fire you get burned! Not sure why anyone would go to North Korea in the first place, but that's the last place you would ever want to cause trouble. And then to make it a big political event and expect the government to bail him out is ridiculous. When Americans travel to unfriendly country as far as I'm concerned they are on their own and the US government shouldn't have to pay to bail them out, or get into a political battle over it.