Laura Ling Inspires Community at the LLUH Women's Conference

This past Friday, Jan. 26, Loma Linda University Health held its’ 7th Annual Women’s Conference. This year’s theme, “Ready. Set. Go Green. Think Lean.” called for all women, no matter the age, to strive to be healthier and more concerned about their overall wholeness. This year’s event was filled with opportunities to learn all things healthy, including free health screenings, morning and afternoon breakout sessions concerning fitness, and healthy lifestyles, massages, and keynote speakers Laura Ling and Chef Marla Cohen. After Kerry Heinrich, CEO of Loma Linda University Medical Center, welcomed everyone to the event, Laura Ling was introduced to speak on her “Journey of Hope.” Laura Ling is an award-winning journalist and currently works for E! Network as a host and reporter for two documentary series: E! Investigates and Society X with Laura Ling. Ling’s inspirational story started in March 2009 while she was working in North Korea as a reporter on the trafficking of North Korean women. The morning of March 17, 2009, Ling and her colleague Euna Lee were crossing the Tumen River, crossing over from China to North Korea. “It was about half-way across that river…I turned around and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles,” she explained. When she turned to run the other way, her boot got stuck in the river. Right as she released her boot from the water, she ran as fast as she could. Ling said, “I was so overcome with fear…before I knew it, the two guards apprehended me.” The soldier dragged her on the ground and began to kick her on the head, jaw, and shoulder repeatedly. As the soldier threw her on the ice, she realized she still had a wireless microphone attached to her sweater that was transmitting her audio to her producer Mitch Koss. “I wondered if Mitch could hear me,” recalled Ling. “Mitch, I think I’m going to die,” she spoke into the microphone. The soldier then brought the rear of his gun down on her head. Ling blacked out. The soldiers transported both her and her colleague from one army base to the next. The two were then blindfolded and escorted outside where all that Ling could hear were soldiers chanting and shouting military drills. “I thought we were being led to our execution,” Ling explained. “But we were shoved into a vehicle.” Ling and her colleague were then sent to jail where they were separated. They slept there for a few nights and then transferred to Capital Pyongyang. “I didn’t know if I could get through a week in that jail,” Ling said. The real interrogation began at Capital Pyongyang, according to Ling. “The interrogators wanted to know everything about my professional and personal life. It was a big challenge for me to try and convince them that I wasn’t a spy,” she said. During her captivity, Ling shared that she would try to reach out to some of the guards to make some small talk and every so often, they would let their guard down and actually engage in conversation. “Those conversations, however brief, just lifted my spirits,” she expressed. Ling was one of the first Americans to be tried in North Korea’s highest court. Her sentence was actually broken down into two increments: 2 years, and 10 years, for a total of 12 years. “The majority of the sentence was not for stepping across that river but for the work we were doing as journalists,” she shared. Anything that deviates from North Korea’s image of the perfect government is considered a threat, she explained to the crowd. In August of that year, Ling and her colleague Lee were reunited and taken to a hotel. As they were walking down a dark hallway, she described, it was filled with North Korean soldiers. However, at the end of the hallway, near the door, she saw a white, bald man in a suit that ended up being with the U.S. Secret Service. As the door at the end of the hallway opened, a figure of a man walked in; it was Bill Clinton. “I don’t know if it was the lighting in the room or my state of utter disbelief…but I swear he had a halo,” she explained as they crowd chuckled. In that moment, Clinton told them that he still had some work to do but he felt confident in taking them home. During the time she spent in captivity, she had a lot of time to think and reflect on the life she had. She explained that she would wonder if she spent that time wisely. “My career in journalism has at times been risky and grueling but I felt glad that I had followed my passion,” Ling explained. As she mentioned the things she was proud of, she also mentioned that one of the biggest regrets she had was not spending enough time with her family. “Not a day goes by where I don’t feel blessed to be home,” Ling said. “The darkest period in my life was also the biggest test of my strength.”