“She began to limp due to injury at the age of three, which naturally passed for 35 years. At present she limps in both legs, especially in the right leg more badly. She cannot turn over on her side or walk due to pain in the area of caput femoris.”

It was the content of the case history of Kim Jong Sun, wife of Hero Pak Thae Son of the Kumgol Mine under the Komdok Mining Complex, 10 years ago.

But she stands on her feet and walks unaided today.

She feels as if she is dreaming now and expresses her gratitude to the many health workers who devoted all their sincerity to her medical treatment, especially Jang Jong Hak, PhD, associate professor and lecturer at Pyongyang University of Medical Sciences.

There is a reason why Jang, who had helped many patients rise on their feet with traditional Koryo medicine for a long time, visited Komdok far away from Pyongyang and took charge of the medical treatment of Jong Sun.

He came to know her when he heard about the heroic feat of her husband.

Pak Thae Son, who saved his comrades by sacrificing himself at an unexpected critical moment, had worked hard as a miner and labour innovator since he was demobbed and settled in the unfamiliar mining village and got married to a nearly crippled woman as his life companion. The story impressed many people who heard about him.

“Pak did not live long, but the footprint he left is engraved deep on the heart of the people. I really bowed my head to the noble spiritual world of him who dedicated his life to the collective and his comrades and who was also self-sacrificing in love. The more I thought of him, the deeper I felt it as my duty and conscience to cure his wife of her disease,” Jang recalled.

He voluntarily served as a doctor in charge of Kim Jong Sun.

For 10 years since then, he put his heart and soul into her treatment shuttling back and forth between Pyongyang and Komdok.

He toured every nook and cranny of the country to find medicinal herbs that suited her physical constitution and burnt the midnight oil hundreds and thousands of days studying new therapies to find the secrets of medical treatment.

Sometimes he was so tired that he fell and so sorry as her health showed no sign of improvement that he lamented his poor medical techniques.

But at that time officials of his university and the mine and mining villagers gave pep talks to him with sincerity, which was a great source of encouragement that helped him get up again.

He threw himself into her medical treatment with redoubled efforts.

Several years passed and a miracle happened: she stood up on her feet.

That day Jong Hak and his wife, who walked her way to find medicinal herbs and visit Komdok with her husband, congratulated Jong Sun with tears on their eyes.

The day when she got up on her feet, Jong Sun was so thankful that she said: “The country put my husband forward as a hero and a patriotic martyr and ensured that our children were brought up at revolutionary school. And it sent Dr Jang Jong Hak and other health workers from central hospitals to treat my illness.

“The Workers' Party of Korea and the benevolent socialist country that praise so highly the deed of an ordinary miner and continuously take care of us are really the eternal embrace of life to which we can entrust our destiny and future.”

A few years have passed since then. She now walks freely without the walking stick.

And she works at the workteam where her husband worked as she wished.