Hospital That Held POW Lynch Now Strained

ByABC News
August 30, 2004, 2:43 PM

Nov. 4 -- The Euphrates River grows wider as it moves south and away from Najaf to the city of Nasiriyah. Here the U.S. military encountered its first major resistance during the Iraq war and it was here that Pfc. Jessica Lynch was captured, treated and then rescued in one of the war's most confusing and controversial moments.

Nasiriyah is just beginning to clean up. The Republican Hospital, where Saddam Fedayeen loyalists based themselves, is in ruins. It was bombed so badly that walls are still collapsed, and only a small outbuilding containing the kidney dialysis machines still operates. There are more dogs in the empty corridors than there are patients.

This has put a great strain on the city's other large hospital, the former Saddam Hospital, which has been renamed Nasiriyah General. This is where Lynch was helped by a group of doctors, including Dr. Said Abdul Raza, who tells us he gave her two bottles of his own child's blood to help save her life.

There have been so many stories about Lynch it is impossible to verify his story, but his colleagues say it's true.

Gratitude and Grumbling

The emergency room is quite busy today. Patients are wheeled or carried in from private cars, taxis and occasionally an old ambulance. Four doctors are on duty for every six-hour shift. The ER chief, Dr. Imad Adine, says in the weeks after the war he would treat about a dozen people a day for bullet or mine wounds, but now that number is down to only about one.

The cases now are more routine: car accidents, work injuries, illness. While we're there a family carries in their adult daughter on top of a thick blanket, but she is clearly dead. Adine pretends to try to save her but quickly pronounces his verdict. Her mother weeps loudly but there is nothing more to do.