By Karen Blackledge
The Daily Item
DANVILLE, Pa. — Don Lynch realized how small the world can be.
The Danville ambulance service supervisor, instructor and paramedic received this year’s National Emergency Medical Services Week Heroism Award recently from Geisinger Medical Center in Moosic.
The Montgomery resident was honored for rescuing a badly injured young man from a small pickup truck after a crash with a tractor-trailer in February in Valley Township, near Danville.
Lynch said he had to break the window on the passenger side of the pickup to aid the man, now 19.
It turned out he and his younger brother, who was riding in the back, were sons of the assistant manager of the store where Lynch’s wife, Julie, works in Montgomery.
The family of the sons nominated him for the plaque presented June 2. Lynch also got to throw out the first pitch at PNC Field along with Gerald Dennis, captain of Jefferson Township Emergency Medical Services, who received the James “Sox” Ruane Award for Community Service.
Every year, nominees are accepted for the heroes and service awards. Lynch said the nominees were invited to the ball park and the winners would be announced that evening.
“I didn’t think I had any chance,” he said, considering nominees included a group of people who administered CPR and brought a patient back to life.
An Allenwood native, Lynch, 54, said the accident he responded to occurred as a rig pulled from Interstate 80 and collided with the front of the pickup truck traveling on Route 54.
His patient, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was thrown head-first into the windshield and almost decapitated, with the great vessels in his neck not injured, Lynch said. “He’s doing really well,” said Lynch, the first paramedic at the scene.
He had to break the window so he could lift the head of the patient who was slumped over.
His brother suffered closed head injuries and the driver had a broken leg and collapsed lung, he said, adding that they are doing all right now.
Since then, the young man has been in contact with Lynch and he and his wife got to see his baby “the other week,” he said.
“My wife called me the day of the accident and said sons of her assistant manager had been in a bad accident in Danville. That was right after I came out of the trauma room,” he said.
He said the sister of the two brothers attends the same church as he and his wife and the sister also helps with Sunday school.
“God put me in that spot at that time. It was meant to be,” he said.
Saying he doesn’t consider himself a hero, he said, “I don’t see it other than doing my job that day.”
“God put me there. He gave me my skills and ability to do this job this long,” said Lynch, who focuses on education of the ambulance staff as well as responding to calls.
He instructs and brings in guest instructors. “I teach doctors and nurses in some classes,” he said.
Mark Martz, battalion chief for the Danville Ambulance Service Division of Holy Spirit EMS, a Geisinger affiliate, said, “We are thrilled to have Don Lynch as part of our amazing team here at Danville Ambulance Service. We are proud of his nomination and award. It was truly well deserved.”
A Danville ambulance employee since September, Lynch has worked as a paramedic for 25 years after graduating from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. He began his career in Virginia. Lynch and his wife returned to Pennsylvania in 1996 so she could be closer to her mother.
He worked 13 years for Shamokin Hospital, then as an emergency support technician for Susquehanna Health System in Williamsport and five years as a paramedic for Evangelical Community Hospital.
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