(REUTERS) – Doctors treating the American college student who was detained for 17 months in North Korea said he suffered serious neurological injury but did not speculate as to what caused the injury, at a news conference on Thursday (June 15).
Images of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier’s brain showed significant loss of brain tissue in all areas of his brain, Dr, Daniel Kanter said.
“He shows no signs of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surroundings. He has not spoken. He has not engaged in any purposeful movements or behaviors,” Dr. Daniel Kanter, the Director of Neurocritical Care at the University Of Cincinnati Medical Center said.
Warmbier’s father has accused Pyongyang of abusing his son.
Doctors also said that they saw no evidence Warmbier had contracted botulism.
North Korea has said that Warmbier fell into a coma after contracting botulism and being given a sleeping pill.
Warmbier, has been treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center since he was released from North Korea earlier in the week.
He has been in a coma since March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea, the family said on Tuesday after he was released.
He was arrested for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, North Korean media reported.
