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Jessica had no gunshot, knife wounds
04/04/2003 08:27 - (SA)
Washington - The father of rescued POW Jessica Lynch said on Thursday she suffered no gunshot or knife wounds at the hands of her Iraqi assailants, contrary to reports quoting a US official.
In a televised press conference from his home in Palestine, West Virginia, Gregory Lynch said that he and his wife had spoken to her after she underwent surgery at a US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.
An examination revealed that the 19-year-old private had "no multiple gunshot wounds or knife stabs," Lynch said, adding that there had been "no entry whatsoever".
The Post, citing a US official, reported that Jessica Lynch had "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting on March 23".
Lynch said: "The doctor has completed one surgery on her back. They have released the pressure on a nerve and realigned all the discs and put plates and stuff in it."
The surgery was performed "because she didn't have any feeling in her feet," and doctors were confident that the problem had been corrected.
He said she would undergo further surgery on Friday for fractures to her legs and right forearm, adding: "She's in real good spirits".
A supply clerk with the 507th Maintenance Company, Lynch was rescued in a pre-dawn raid on an Iraqi-held hospital in Nasiriyah, where she had been held for more than a week.
Iraqi forces ambushed Lynch's company after it took a wrong turn last month near the southern city of Nasiriyah.
- AFX
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