Rescued POW Was 'Fighting to the Death'

April 3, 2003 -- Rescued POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch is in good spirits and recovering well, her mother said today, as a newspaper reported the 19-year-old Army supply clerk put up a ferocious fight before she was captured in southern Iraq.

"She was in very good spirits; she sounded good," Lynch's mother, Deadra Lynch, told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America today.

"She just sounded like our Jessi."

Lynch was captured in an ambush March 23 after her Army 507th Maintenance Co. took a wrong turn near the southern Iraq city of Nasiriyah. A team of U.S. special forces troops rescued her Tuesday from "Saddaam Hospital" in the city.

She was reported to be suffering from two broken legs, a broken arm and broken vertebrae.

Early reports said she may also have been shot and stabbed, but her father, Gregory Lynch Sr., told a news conference in her West Virginia hometown today that the reports were not true.

"We have heard and seen reports that she had multiple gunshot wounds and a knife stabbing. The doctor has not seen any of this," he told reporters in Palestine, W.Va. "There's no entry [wounds] whatsoever."

She did, however, have surgery on her back, and told her father by phone that she didn't have any feeling in her feet.

The parents of the former POW have now spoken to her three times since her rescue — twice today and once Wednesday, and have learned that she is scheduled for surgery on her broken legs and broken right arm Friday. Lynch is expected to be flown to the United States as soon as she's stabilized after surgery. Her injuries are not described as life-threatening.

Her father says family members haven't talked to Lynch about her ordeal, but they have spent several hours with Pentagon officials discussing what happened to her in Iraq.

Her brother says she doesn't seem to be aware of all the attention she received. He says she wanted to know if the story of her capture made the paper back home in Palestine.

The 19-year-old former POW left Iraq on a stretcher with an American flag draped across her chest, and arrived at a U.S. air base in Germany late Wednesday for treatment at the military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.

The crew that flew Lynch from Iraq to Germany said she was calm and quiet during the trip. They treated her with intravenous fluids and gave her pain medication.

"She was conscious but she wasn't speaking very much," said Susan Hodges, an Aero Medical Evacuation Technician on the flight.

‘Fighting to the Death’

According to a report today in The Washington Post, Lynch fought ferociously during the ambush that led to her capture.

Lynch shot several Iraqis and continued to fire even after being shot, U.S. officials told the Post. She saw several soldiers in her unit die, according to the report.

"She was fighting to the death," the newspaper quoted an official as saying. "She did not want to be taken alive."

The Post said she kept shooting until she ran out of ammunition.

On the phone Wednesday evening, the rescued prisoner of war joked with her father on the phone about a home-cooked meal, said her brother, Greg Lynch Jr.

"Her biggest thing around the house [is that] she doesn't like potatoes, especially fried potatoes. That's one of my dad's favorite things, and of course he offered to fix her that," he said.

The Lynch family said they didn't press her for details. "I just let her know she was America's hero," Deadra Lynch said.

Five captured soldiers from the 507th appeared on Iraqi television shortly after the battle, along with what appeared to be the bodies of other U.S. servicemen.

Daring Commando Raid

Grainy night-vision video shot by a combat camera crew with the U.S. commandos on Tuesday in Iraq showed Lynch awake and alert on a stretcher outside the Nasiriyah hospital.

The night-vision video enabled senior officers at U.S. Central Command in Qatar to watch the dramatic rescue as it happened.

"It was a classical joint operation done by some of our nation's finest warriors, who are dedicated to never leaving a comrade behind," said Central Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks.

An Iraqi doctor tipped U.S. forces to Lynch's location, U.S. officials told ABCNEWS.

Elite commando units including Army Rangers, Marines, Navy SEALs and Air Force pilots and combat controllers took part in the daring raid.

Sources said it was a textbook "extraction," in which Army Rangers secured the perimeter of the hospital compound, with the SEALs storming inside to locate Lynch and rush her to a waiting helicopter.

No coalition forces were injured, despite engaging in firefights entering and leaving the building, Brooks said.

The hospital, he added, was being used as a military command post, and U.S. forces found ammunition, mortars, maps, and terrain models in the facility.

U.S. forces launched a diversionary military attack in Nasiriyah to coincide with the rescue mission.

An Iraqi captured during the hospital raid showed rescuers 11 bodies in a morgue and "grave area," Brooks said, and U.S. forces retrieved the remains. They have not yet been identified, but could be the bodies of U.S. soldiers.

The Pentagon has listed seven Americans as captured by Iraq since the outbreak of the war, but 17 other Americans, including Lynch, were listed as status unknown.

ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz contributed to this report.