UVA Student Detained in North Korea Dies Days after Return to US

Carrie Dedrick | Updated: Jun 20, 2017

UVA Student Detained in North Korea Dies Days after Return to US

Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea in January 2016, has died at the age of 22. The Washington Examiner reports that Warmbier was returned to his home in Ohio last week; he was in a coma upon arrival. 

Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center examined Warmbier, coming to the conclusion that he had lost significant brain tissue in all regions of his brain. However, the medical team could not point to a cause for the tissue loss. 

Warmbier had been detained and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly attempting to steal a propaganda banner that hung in the Pyongyang hotel where he was staying. 

A statement from Warmbier’s family said, "It would be easy at a moment like this to focus on all that we lost — future time that won't be spent with a warm, engaging, brilliant young man whose curiosity and enthusiasm for life knew no bounds. But we choose to focus on the time we were given to be with this remarkable person."

 

Photo credit: ©Thinkstock/jaconelli



UVA Student Detained in North Korea Dies Days after Return to US