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Article snippet: WYOMING, Ohio — For more than a year, while their son Otto was a prisoner in North Korea, Fred and Cindy Warmbier knew nothing about his fate. Then, over the last week, the Warmbiers finally received some news: First, the family learned that Otto, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, was gravely ill, and then that he would be coming home. But his return has been heart-wrenching for the family and this small community that has wrapped its arms around them. On Thursday, doctors caring for Mr. Warmbier at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center delivered grim news: He had suffered “extensive loss of brain tissue in all regions of his brain” most likely caused by “cardiopulmonary arrest,” which cut off the blood supply to his brain. Based on two M.R.I. scans sent by the North Koreans, the doctors concluded that Mr. Warmbier had sustained his catastrophic brain injury sometime before April 2016. “His neurological condition can best be described as a state of unresponsive wakefulness,” said Dr. Daniel Kanter, the medical director at the center’s Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit. Mr. Warmbier has “spontaneous eye-opening and blinking,” Dr. Kanter said, but “shows no signs of understanding language, responding to verbal commands or awareness of his surroundings.” The doctors spoke just hours after Fred Warmbier attacked North Korea as a “pariah regime” that had “brutalized and terrorized” his son. He described the homecoming as “bittersweet” and called his s... Link to the full article to read more