Lynch’s Parents Deny Reports of Wounds

The parents of a 19-year-old soldier rescued from an Iraqi hospital by special operations units said Thursday that their daughter had not been stabbed or shot, as had been reported.

“We have heard and seen reports that she had multiple gunshot wounds and knife stabbings,” Greg Lynch Sr. said of his daughter, Jessica. “The doctor has not seen any of this. He looked for the gunshot wounds and knife stabbings, and there was no entry whatsoever.”

Lynch, who has broken limbs, underwent back surgery Thursday to relieve pressure on a nerve because she had no feeling in her feet. The soldier, from Palestine, W.Va., was rescued by U.S. forces who fought their way into Saddam Hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. Once inside, the troops found Lynch and carried her by stretcher to a waiting helicopter.

“Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen,” Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks said at a briefing at Central Command in Doha, Qatar. He said the rescuers were “loyal to a creed that they know, that they’ll never leave a fallen comrade and never embarrass their country.”

Bravery wasn’t in short supply in Lynch’s rescue. The Washington Post reported today that an Iraqi lawyer risked his life to save the young soldier.

The 32-year-old, known as Mohammed, said he sneaked into the hospital, where his wife is a nurse, and spoke with Lynch. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he told her.

He located the Marines and told them what he knew, giving them several hand-drawn maps of the hospital layout.

Mohammed has left his old life behind for a refugee center in the southern port of Umm al Qasr, but he told the Post he had no doubts about his decision.

“She would not have lived,” he said. “It was very important.”

When Lynch was rescued, U.S. troops also found two bodies in the morgue and nine others in a community burial area, according to Brooks, who said the bodies had not been identified.

Lynch was in a convoy of the Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, which was ambushed on March 23 after taking a wrong turn near Nasiriyah.