 McCain spent six weeks in the hospital , receiving marginal care in a dirty , wet environment . A prolonged attempt to set the fractures on his right arm , done without anesthetic , was unsuccessful ; he received an operation on his broken leg but no treatment for his broken left arm . He was temporarily taken to a clean room and interviewed by a French journalist , François Chalais , whose report was carried on the French television program Panorama in January 1968 and later in the U.S. on the CBS Evening News . The film footage of McCain lying in the bed , in a cast , smoking cigarettes and speaking haltingly , would become one of the most widely distributed images of McCain 's imprisonment . McCain was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese , including renowned Vietnamese writer Nguyễn Tuân and Defense Minister and Army commander @-@ in @-@ chief General Võ Nguyên Giáp . Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that McCain must be part of America 's political @-@ military @-@ economic elite . Now having lost fifty pounds ( twenty @-@ three kilograms ) , in a chest cast , covered in grime and eyes full of fever , and with his hair turned white , in early December 1967 McCain was sent to a prisoner @-@ of @-@ war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed " the Plantation " . He was placed in a cell with George " Bud " Day , a badly injured and tortured Air Force pilot ( later awarded the Medal of Honor ) and Norris Overly , another Air Force pilot ; they did not expect McCain to live another week . Overly , and subsequently Day , nursed McCain and kept him alive ; Day later remembered that McCain had " a fantastic will to live " . 
