text: Doctor says 24-year-old known as Oh needed two bodies’ worth of blood transfusions to save him and has nightmares about being sent back over border 
   
   North Korea’s latest defector, a young soldier being identified only by his family name Oh, is a quiet, pleasant man who has nightmares about being returned to the North, his surgeon has said. 
   
   
   
   North Korean defector's daring escape caught on video Read more 
   
   “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 shot and badly wounded by fellow North Korean soldiers as he scrambled across the border in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that separates North and South on 13 November. 
   
   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. 
   
   Lee has been one of very few people to speak with Oh since he arrived at the hospital, the surgeon said in an interview at his office at Ajou University Hospital, 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, after secondary school graduation. The soldier’s hair was styled “like a jarhead, like a US 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. 
   
   North Korean defector had 27cm parasitic worm in his stomach Read more 
   
   “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. 
   
   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 US 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. 
   
   Two major surgeries were required to remove the bullets and patch Oh back together, and the medical team pumped as much as 12 litres of blood transfusions into his body. The normal body has less than half that 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. 
   
   Most North Korean defectors undergo security questioning by South Korea’s intelligence agency once they arrive before being sent to a resettlement centre for a three-month education on life in the South. After they are released, central and local governments provide 7m won ($6,450) in cash over a year, as well as support in housing, education and job training. 
   
   Police officers are assigned to each of the defectors to ensure their security and safety. 
   
   Even if Oh fully recovers, some scars will stay for the rest of his life, the surgeon said. 
   
   Among the longest lasting wounds will be the damage to his colon, which was shredded by a bullet and had to be stitched back together in seven places. “It’s a lifelong complication for the patient, so he’s better to be very cautious in his diet,” said the surgeon. 
   
   Besides the potential for further medical complications, Lee says he is most worried about making sure Oh recovers psychologically. The soldier has already told him he had a nightmare about being returned to the North. 
   
   The surgeon said he has asked senior South Korean military officials who are eager to question the soldier to hold off while he recovers. 
   
   “This North Korean guy is not going anywhere,” Lee said. “He is staying in South Korea. So we don’t need to be hasty. ||||| CLOSE The US-led UN command released dramatic video showing a North Korean soldier dash across border into South Korea as North Korean troops fire at him. The defector was wounded. The UN says North Korea violated the Korean War armistice by firing. (Nov. 22) AP 
   
   This screengrab made from video footage released by the United Nations Command on Nov. 22 shows North Korea soldiers reacting to the news of a defection. (Photo: AFP) 
   
   A North Korean soldier who was shot and wounded as he sought to scramble across a heavily guarded border to freedom in South Korea is a "nice guy" who appreciates American movies, TV shows and western-style pop music, according to the doctor treating him. 
   
   Surgeon John Cook-Jong Lee told the Reuters news agency this week that the North Korean defector, a young soldier who is recovering in a Seoul hospital and has only been identified by the name "Oh," admitted to liking the comedy film Bruce Almighty starring Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman and the gritty crime television series CSI. 
   
   The 24-year-old also expressed admiration for K-pop, a South Korean musical genre that mixes elements of electronica, rock, hip hop, R&B and jazz. 
   
   More: Video shows North Korean soldier's daring, bullet-ridden defection to South 
   
   It wasn't clear if the soldier was first exposed to western movies, TV shows and music in the hospital ward where he arrived after being shot four times on Nov. 13, or if he gained access to them while inside North Korea. Pyongyang is a highly secretive regime that restricts information its citizens can access to crack down on dissent. 
   
   Dramatic footage of the soldier's daring defection was released Wednesday by the American-led United Nations Command that helps police the 1950-1953 Korean War armistice. It showed showed him racing across the border under fire from former comrades, and then being hauled to safety by South Korean troops. 
   
   "He told me that he is so thankful for South Koreans for saving his life and giving him so much blood," Lee said of the soldier in the interview. He said "Oh" was recovering well physically but having recurring nightmares about being sent back to the North. 
   
   "He's a pretty nice guy," he said, adding that he had hair "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." 
   
   North Korea is believed to have replaced all the border security guards who failed to prevent the soldier's defection, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Friday. 
   
   Marc Knapper, the acting U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, tweeted a picture Thursday of what he said showed North Koreans planting two trees and digging a trench at the spot where "Oh" crossed into the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. North Korean border guards who were chasing him had strayed into the area before turning back, technically violating the terms of the Korean War truce. 
   
   More: Kim Jong Un's family: The bizarre, cruel world of North Korea's dynasty 
   
   Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2iL6enG ||||| SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has reportedly replaced guards and fortified a section of its border with South Korea where a North Korean soldier defected last week, while South Korean and U.S. soldiers have been decorated for their role in the defector’s rescue. 
   
   North Korean soldiers dig a trench and plant trees in the area where, on November 13, a defector ran across the border at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing North Korea and South Korea November 22, 2017. Handout via REUTERS 
   
   The North Korean defector was shot and wounded by his fellow soldiers as he dashed into the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area (JSA) last week. 
   
   The South Korean and U.S. soldiers who led a rescue attempt to drag the gravely injured soldier to safety have been awarded medals, according to U.S. Forces Korea. 
   
   A group of senior diplomats based in Seoul visited the JSA on Wednesday morning where they saw five North Korean workers digging a deep trench in the area where the soldier had dashed across the line after getting his jeep stuck in a small ditch, a member of the diplomatic delegation told Reuters on Friday. 
   
   In a photograph of the visit posted to the Twitter account of acting U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Marc Knapper, North Korean workers could be seen using shovels to dig a deep trench on the North Korean side of the line as soldiers stood guard. 
   
   “The workers were being watched very closely by the KPA guards, not just the two in the photo, but others out of shot behind the building,” said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation. 
   
   According to an intelligence official cited by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, the North has replaced the 35-40 soldiers it had guarding the JSA at the time of the incident. 
   
   “We’re closely monitoring the North Korean military’s movement in the JSA,” a South Korean defense ministry official told reporters, without confirming the reduction in border guards. “There are limits as to what we can say about things we know.” 
   
   Reuters was unable to independently verify the reports, although photos taken by Knapper and other diplomats of soldiers guarding the area where workers were digging the trench showed them dressed in slightly different uniforms to the ones usually worn by North Korea’s JSA guards. 
   
   Two new trees had also been planted in the small space between the ditch and the line with the South, the diplomat told Reuters, in an apparent effort to make it more difficult for would-be defectors to drive across the ground. 
   
   Meanwhile, in South Korea, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said it had awarded its own JSA soldiers - three South Korean and three U.S. soldiers - the Army Commendation medal in recognition for their efforts in rescuing the defector. 
   
   The medals were personally handed out by USFK Commander Vincent Brooks in a ceremony on Thursday, according to USFK’s Facebook page. 
   
   The soldiers had been responsible for dragging the wounded North Korean soldier to safety in a daring rescue seen in security camera footage released by the United Nations Command earlier this week. 
   
   Pyongyang has not commented on the defection of its soldier, who is now in stable condition despite sustaining multiple injuries sustained from gunshot wounds to his arm and torso. 
   
   The 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 told Reuters on Thursday. 
   
   (For a graphic, click reut.rs/2jfoZPI) ||||| No medical drama is complete without a bold-yet-sensitive heartthrob doctor in a leading role. The incredible tale of a North Korean soldier's escape across the demilitarized zone last week is no exception. 
   
   The McDreamy in this case is Lee Cook-jong, the trauma surgeon who has operated on the soldier several times and provided updates along the way — including a video showing Lee picking 10-inch-long parasitic worms out of the man's intestines and his declaration Wednesday that the defector will survive. 
   
   "The patient is not going to die," Lee told reporters at Ajou University Hospital south of Seoul, announcing that the man had regained consciousness and was stable. 
   
   Although he remains in the intensive care unit, he could be transferred to a general ward as soon as this weekend. 
   
   The 24-year-old North Korean soldier, who has been identified only by his surname, Oh, was shot five times as he made his brazen escape Nov. 13. 
   
   Closed-circuit television footage released by the U.S. military on Wednesday showed Oh driving a jeep southward before the vehicle became stuck in a ditch yards from the Military Demarcation Line that forms the border. 
   
   Oh jumped out and started running for the line. Four North Korean border guards tried to stop him, firing more than 40 rounds at him. One guard briefly crossed the line, violating the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953. 
   
   The video showed Oh lying wounded in a pile of leaves against a building on the southern side. Then three South Korean soldiers crawled out and dragged him to safety. 
   
   From there, he was put in a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and flown 50 miles south to the hospital in Suwon, where Lee was waiting. 
   
   "If it weren't for their emergency measures, he would have died before arriving at the hospital," Lee said. 
   
   [Dramatic video shows North Korean soldier making a run for freedom ] 
   
   It was still touch-and-go when Oh arrived at the hospital. His blood pressure was so low after losing so much blood that the doctors did not even have time to check his blood type. Instead, they pumped about 40 units — between three and four times the amount of blood contained in a human body — of type O into him. 
   
   He has had three surgeries, including an attempt to repair his damaged internal organs and stop the contamination caused by the parasites and the injuries. 
   
   Through it all, the trauma surgeon, often in scrubs, has been giving regular updates on the soldier's condition. 
   
   The revelation that the man had a severe parasitic infection — Lee said he had never seen such a case except in medical textbooks — and that his stomach contained raw corn kernels prompted widespread shock in South Korea. North Korean front-line soldiers were supposed to be elite troops, yet this man had worms not seen in South Korea since the 1970s and had been eating uncooked corn? 
   
   Oh also has tuberculosis and hepatitis B, Lee said. And, at 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing about 130 pounds, he is several inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than the average male 18-year-old South Korean. 
   
   There is intense interest in the soldier, and military intelligence officers reportedly are eager to question him about his escape, but Lee has been fending them off. The soldier is showing signs of depression and post-traumatic stress, and it will take about a month before he is well enough to answer questions, the doctor said. 
   
   For now, Lee is keeping the conversation light — talking about the way things are done in South Korea rather than asking him about North Korea — and trying to cheer him up. 
   
   The medical staff played him "Gee," a peppy pop song by Girls' Generation — featuring lyrics such as, "Oh, it's too pretty, your soul's too pretty/It's love at first sight" — and he declared that he liked girl bands. 
   
   Lee also said Oh has been watching the American TV series "CSI" and the action movie "The Transporter," in which a former special-forces operative hires himself out as a mercenary. 
   
   The staff also has hung a South Korean flag in his room to reassure him he really is in the South. 
   
   [Escaped North Korean soldier fights for life after being shot crossing DMZ ] 
   
   This is not Lee's first time in the spotlight. The surgeon became a national hero in 2011 when he saved the life of a ship captain who had been shot by Somali pirates. 
   
   After pirates seized a chemical freighter near the Gulf of Aden in 2011, South Korean commandos stormed the ship and the pirates shot the captain six times during the rescue attempt. 
   
   Lee was waiting at a hospital in Oman and saved the captain's life, earning a reputation as the country's leading trauma surgeon. There was even a popular medical drama based on this story, "Golden Time." The title was a reference to Lee's frequent reminder that it is the hour after a severe injury that is most important for saving someone's life. 
   
   The 48-year-old Lee, who is blind in one eye and renowned for working 36-hour shifts, was also the inspiration for a character in another drama, "Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim," released last year. He became such a celebrity that even octogenarians with diabetes were trying to get in to see him. 
   
   Lee became a doctor in South Korea but trained as a critical-care surgeon at the University of California at San Diego Medical Center in 2003. He then went on to the Royal London Hospital's trauma center. 
   
   Returning home, he realized that there was no equivalent facility at any hospital in South Korea and estimated that about 30,000 trauma patients were dying in the country each year because of treatment delays and a lack of dedicated trauma units. 
   
   He persuaded authorities to fund proper trauma centers, including his unit at Ajou University Hospital. Now, 20 percent of revenue from traffic fines goes to trauma centers in the country. 
   
   [American detained trying to enter North Korea; North Korean soldier escapes to the South ] 
   
   But for a trauma surgeon, Lee faces a predicament that is unimaginable for American ER doctors: He seldom gets to treat gunshot wounds, because South Korea has very strict rules on gun ownership. 
   
   Ten murders with a firearm were reported in South Korea between 2010 and 2015, compared with 8,592 in the United States, according to figures from the Small Arms Survey. 
   
   Instead, the relatively few gunshot wounds he has treated have been sustained by South Korean and U.S. soldiers hurt during military drills, he told the Korea Times in 2015. Still, that appears to have been enough practice to save the North Korean soldier's life. 
   
   Now, South Koreans are waiting for Lee's next statement on the soldier's prognosis. 
   
   In online forums, South Korean "netizens" have been sending their best wishes to Lee and his patient. 
   
   "A Korean who put his life on the line to cross over to the south. Hopefully he can be saved!" wrote one in an online medical forum. 
   
   Another added, "Please survive so you can live in South Korea!" 
   
   Read more: 
   
   What the parasites in a defector’s stomach tell us about North Korea 
   
   Graphic: This thin ribbon of land separates North and South Korea 
   
   Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world 
   
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target: – North Korea is trying to make sure that no others will be able to defect the way that a young soldier did last week. The fixes aren't exactly high-tech: North Korean soldiers were seen digging a big trench in the border area where the soldier first drove and then ran to freedom, reports Reuters. They also planted trees, apparently to prevent vehicles from getting through in the future. Finally, North Korea also seems to have replaced all of its border security guards, reports the Yonhap news agency, which surmises that any officers involved are in for serious punishment. Details and developments: The soldier: "He's a pretty nice guy," the lead South Korean surgeon says of the 24-year-old defector, identified only by the name "Oh." The patient likes Bruce Almighty and CSI, though USA Today notes it's unclear whether he saw that US movie and show in the hospital or previously in North Korea on the black market. Oh faces a long recuperation, having been shot at least five times. One bullet decimated his colon. The surgeon: The incident has put the spotlight, again, on 48-year-old trauma surgeon Lee Cook-jong. Lee is the one giving regular updates after the surgeries he performs, and the Washington Post reports that he previously became a "national hero" in 2011 when he saved the life of a ship captain shot by Somali pirates. That feat became the subject of a medical drama. Lee, blind in one eye, also served as the inspiration for a character in a second drama called Romantic Doctor, Teacher Kim, which was released last year and gave him certifiable celeb status. The Post uses the terms "heartthrob" and "McDreamy" in the profile. Next for Oh: The surgeon, taking note of Oh's "jarhead" haircut, jokingly suggested that Oh eventually join the South Korean military: "He smiled and said that he would never ever go back to the military system again." When he's stronger, Oh will be debriefed. Then he'll get help with housing, education, and job training from the South Korean government, reports the Guardian.