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WEST AMWELL: Heart attack victim will thank his rescuers

He’ll celebrate his death at July 11 party

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
West Amwell resident James Lynch remembers what he did for summer vacation in 2013.
He died.
Thanks to the quick actions of two youngsters he didn’t know — and still hasn’t met face to face — he survived. He and his family will thank the life savers, a brother and sister in their early 20s, at a celebration reunion dinner on Friday, July 11, at 4 p.m. at Gallo Rosso Ristorante, Flemington.
Last July, Mr. Lynch was with his sister-in-law, her children and grandkids — about 12 in total — on a long-planned vacation to Durango, Colorado.
On the fourth day, a trip to Mesa Verde National Park was on the agenda. Mr. Lynch, 71, and the family climbed down ladders to take a ranger-guided tour through the Puebloan village remains. It was hot, he was at some altitude and a bit out of shape "from a lazy life," he admitted.
"I had been somewhat hesitant about going down to the cliff dwellings, but, in the end, decided to join the family and hiked down," he said. "The sun was out and I soon was too hot, so I climbed back up and was sitting down chatting with somebody. That’s really the last I remember."
He passed out. He was having a heart attack.
Luckily for him, Adam and Anna Smyser, a brother and sister from Hershey, Pa., in the tour group ahead heard the commotion and came back to help.
The two, who had just completed a CPR course as part of their life guard training "came to the rescue," he remembers today. "They knew what to do and they did it."
The Smysers "saved my life," said Mr. Lynch. "They didn’t hesitate."
Working in tandem, with Adam giving compressions and Anna supplying rescue breaths, they administered CPR for 20 minutes until park rangers arrived with a defibrillator, which Adam and Anna used to shock Mr. Lynch’s body about five times, he said.
A helicopter arrived, and he was flown to Mercy Medical Center in Durango, "where they put me on a ventilator and lowered my temperature to lessen the brain damage," he recalls. "I was kept in this state for two to three days, during which time my family was told that I would survive, but, since I was not breathing for so long, there would probably be brain damage.
"When they brought me out of this induced coma, my first words were "who’s been jumping on my chest,’ he said this week. "Everyone laughed and cried."
Mr. Lynch said, "The doctors in Durango may have stabilized me, but Adam and Anna saved my life."
The doctors eventually inserted a stent in one aorta. Mr. Lynch said his twin brother, John, died of a sudden heart attack when he was mowing a lawn — when there was no one there to help him.
"All my faculties soon returned," he said. "It took a little time for my short-term memory to reboot, but in the end the only full memory I lost is the memory of the day I died."
Mr. Lynch, a freelancing sound engineer for film and TV, has lived in West Amwell since1989. Thanks to the Smysers, he should have many more years.
The Smysers will travel from their home in Hershey, Pa. Mr. Lynch’s relatives are coming in from Tennessee, Michigan and New York to join in the celebration, which will be the day before Mr. Lynch’s 72nd birthday.
"I’ve talked to them on the phone," Mr. Lynch said, "but I’ve never seen them. They’ve seen me, but I wasn’t there."