Rescued POW Lynch returns to US

WASHINGTON: The Army’s premier medical centre is becoming the new home for rescued POW Jessica Lynch, who faces a lengthy rehabilitation from injuries she received in Iraq.

The 19-year-old private first class, in good spirits but injured from head to toe, returned yesterday to the United States along with family members and some four dozen soldiers injured in the war. Lynch, who is from Palestine, West Virginia, is to receive treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, a huge campus several miles from downtown Washington. Her family said in a written statement issued in Germany that Lynch “is in pain, but she is in good spirits. Although she faces a lengthy rehabilitation, she is tough. We believe she will regain her strength soon.”

Lynch was treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany for a head wound, a spinal injury, fractures to her right arm, both legs, and her right foot and ankle. Gunshots may have caused open fractures on her upper right arm and lower left leg, according to the hospital. The supply clerk was captured March 23 after her 507th Maintenance Company convoy was ambushed in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital in the city April 1 by US commandos, reportedly after a tip from an Iraqi lawyer.

When US commandos staged their daring rescue in Nasiriyah, they found a frightened woman who hid under a sheet when they stormed into her hospital room. “Jessica Lynch,” called out an American soldier, approaching her bed. “We are United States soldiers and we’re here to protect you and take you home,” a Central Command spokesman told reporters after the raid.

Peering from behind the sheet as he removed his helmet, she looked up and said, “I’m an American soldier, too.” Residents in a Charleston, West Virginia, suburb have said they are trying to locate the Iraqi lawyer, known as Mohammed. Although his role has not been confirmed by the US military, a “Friends of Mohammed” organization has been formed in the state. Nine other members of the 507th Maintenance Company were killed in the ambush and were posthumously awarded Purple Hearts.