Yi hospitalized with Soyuz re-entry injuries
Yi So-yeon
Yi So-yeon’s scheduled meetings, including one with President Lee Myung-bak, have all been canceled while she undergoes medical tests.
“I thought I could die during re-entry,” confessed Yi during an exclusive interview with SBS.
Yi was admitted to the Aerospace Medical Center in Cheongju, North Chungcheong yesterday morning around 11:00 a.m.
“It will take a few days to get the test results. Based on those results, Yi could be hospitalized for a long time or could quickly resume her schedule,” the official added.
Doctors performed an MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, exam of Yi’s waist and neck, according to Jung Ki-young, an official from Korea Aerospace Research Institute.
Yi is suffering from severe pain in her waist, Jung added. No further details were available.
“We are not allowed to comment on Yi because KARI asked us not to,” said an official at the hospital who asked to be unnamed.
Yi was scheduled to meet President Lee yesterday morning. On re-entry, Yi’s Soyuz TMA-11 space capsule unexpectedly switched from controlled to ballistic mode, missing its landing zone by 420 kilometers (260 miles).
The capsule had was burned by the time it landed on the central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan. Neither the Korean government nor Yi have received any official explanation from Russia on what went wrong.
Yi grimaced Monday when her mother hugged her at Incheon International Airport because of back pain. Bodyguards helped her walk.
After the rough landing, Yi had bruises over her arms and legs because she had been exposed up to ten times the force of gravity. With news of Yi’s hospitalization, attention focused on what exactly happened when the capsule reentered the atmosphere.
Below are excerpts from an interview with Yi conducted by SBS correspondent Kim Hee-nam on April 22 in Kazakhstan.
What happened in the re-entry capsule on your way down?
Before the capsule enters the Earth’s atmosphere, computers automatically calculate and show details such as what degrees of G-forces we are going to confront and the location of the expected landing zone. The computers showed that we were going to feel four times the force of gravity. We were not trained for that kind of situation, though I heard it was possible from other astronauts before.
But when we entered the Earth’s atmosphere, the G-forces were way more than I expected. My vision became blurry and I couldn’t focus because my eyes suffered from the G-force pressure. And while this was all happening, I saw that an emergency lamp was on.
We all realized that something was going wrong. I thought ‘Gosh, I may not get back to Earth.’
Tell us some details until moments you were rescued by Russia.
A normal landing does not physically affect you that much. But we were different because of the acceleration. I’m a kind of person who hardly says ouch but I had no choice but to scream because the shock was enormous.
To make matters worse, personal belongings of my fellow astronauts fell on me including Peggy’s manuals and Yuri’s bag.
Except for some things that were attached to ropes, everything fell on me because I was seated at the bottom.
If you move from a state of weightlessness into a state of gravity, even a little tiny thing feels very heavy. It was so painful.
I had started to move things to try to get out of the capsule. The hatch is very narrow, so it was hard to get out of it wearing a space suit.
Later, we found a group of nomads. They looked stunned. Why not? A fireball falls from the sky and three people crawl out of it.
One of the nomads helped me get out of the capsule. About 50 of them surrounded us and looked at us as if we were monkeys in a cage.
We asked the nomads to find a satellite phone in the capsule so we could get in touch with the Russia-based Mission Control Center.
Any impressive moments on your way to Earth?
When a capsule enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes a huge fireball.
I could see flames. They were 30 centimeters away from me outside my window.
But it was not hot at all. I thought the capsule was really well made.
Why did you miss the landing zone?
I have no idea. The Soyuz was full of gas so we turned off the power and it caused Mission Control to lose track of us.
By Sung So-young Staff Reporter [so@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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