North Korean defector holds crutches in State of the Union Address

When Trump criticized Pyongyang in his State of the Union address on January 30, he invited a North Korean defector named Ji Seong-ho, 34, to come and tell his story.

In 1996, Ji was a 13-year-old boy living in a mining village near the city of Hoeryong in North Korea. The country was suffering from a severe famine that killed more than two million people. Reliant on roots and corn cobs, Ji's family was so weak they could do nothing but lie on the floor and sometimes hallucinate, according toNYTimes.

Ji stole coal from freight trains to trade for corn. Villagers could only steal coal between 1am and 5am, when the trains were not guarded by armed police.

"There were about 100 thieves like me. When the train left the station at night, we came out of hiding and crawled into the carriages like zombies," Ji said. "If we missed the train, our family would have nothing to eat for days."

On the night of March 7, 1996, while Ji was throwing a sack of coal out of the train to his sister standing below, he fainted from hunger and fell between two train cars, his left leg and left arm were severed.

Ji was taken to a local clinic and treated without anesthesia or blood transfusion. "I could hear the sound of blood dripping into a bucket below as the doctor sawed the bone," Ji said.

After recovering, Ji went to markets and train stations on crutches to beg, but never considered fleeing North Korea until 2000, when he crossed the border into China. There, Ji was fed at a church and found that “the animals in China ate better than the North Koreans.” A month later, Ji returned home with some food for his family. Police arrested Ji and beat him for 20 days.

"You cripple, you were begging in China in front of foreign cameras. You are a disgrace to the leader and the country," Ji recalled being yelled at by a police officer. "That's when I realized I had no future in North Korea," Ji added.

Ji then contacted a fellow villager who had fled to South Korea using a mobile phone that picked up a Chinese signal near the border. In April 2006, Ji crossed the Tumen River into China. Ji walked on the frozen river but nearly drowned when he lost his balance on a melting section of ice. Ji’s younger brother, who had fled with him, pulled him out.

In China, the two brothers parted ways. Ji feared he would be a burden to his brother on the difficult journey to South Korea. "We thought at least one of us had to make it to South Korea so we could earn money and get our parents out of North Korea," he said.

Ji and three other defectors made their way through the jungles of Laos to Thailand. “Every step of the escape was difficult and dangerous, we had to hike up mountains, change vehicles and cross borders,” Ji said. “Because the journey was so stressful, some of us fell ill during or after the escape.”

At the South Korean embassy in Bangkok, diplomats were surprised to see a disabled North Korean defector for the first time. They rushed Ji to Seoul, where the government provided him with a prosthetic arm and leg.

Ji reunited with his younger brother in South Korea, his mother and sister later also came to South Korea but Ji's father was caught while fleeing and died in prison.

He studied law in Seoul and founded an organization to help North Korean defectors. Ji has been invited to the United States several times to talk about his journey. Much of Ji's story cannot be independently verified.

Despite having prosthetic arms and legs, Ji never threw away the crutch his father made for him. Ji held it up when Trump introduced him at the State of the Union. "It's proof that you can achieve anything if you don't give up," Ji emphasized.