8,000-mile rescue for Korean sailor KO'd by a frozen squid.
A Korean fisherman knocked unconscious when he was hit on the head by a frozen squid was airlifted 8,000 miles to a British hospital.Kim Ung Ik, who suffered serious head injuries, was flown by the RAF from the Falkland Islands to Brize Norton near Oxford in a rescue operation costing pounds 1,258.
When he woke up two days later, Kim, 42, who speaks no English, remembered nothing about his accident or the mercy dash to England.
And the mystery of how the frozen squid came to hit his head during the fishing trip off the Falklands remains unsolved.
Megan Turmezei, of the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, where Kim was treated, said: "Whether he was bashed with it by an irate crew member or it inexplicably fell from the sky, we simply don't know."
Kim was flown to Britain because local hospital facilities had been unable to cope with his injuries. The Foreign Office paid for him to be repatriated to Pyongyang in North Korea when he recovered.
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| Author: | Shaw, Adrian |
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| Publication: | The Mirror (London, England) |
| Date: | Jun 7, 1997 |
| Words: | 170 |
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