Thousands of friends and family members gathered in suburban Cincinnati on Thursday to say goodbye to an American student who died days after being returned to the United States in a coma following 17 months in captivity in North Korea.

Otto Warmbier, 22, was arrested in the reclusive communist country while visiting as a tourist. He was brought back to the United States last week with brain damage, in what doctors described as state of "unresponsive wakefulness," and died on Monday.

Some 2,500 mourners lined up early on Thursday morning at Wyoming High School, in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming. Warmbier attended the school. He will be buried later in the day at a local cemetery.