A Kansas City man relied on his Eagle Scout training when a late-night cry for help sent him dashing outside to assist 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who was suffering from two gunshot wounds.
James Lynch, 42, was just getting ready for bed on Thursday when he heard someone screaming for help in his normally quiet neighborhood. Lynch told NBC News he looked out his kitchen window and saw Yarl banging on the door of a nearby home, crying for help.
Lynch, a father of three, immediately left his home to answer Yarl’s cries, finding the teen seemingly unconscious and covered in blood by the time he managed to get to where he was, the outlet reported. “I thought he was dead,” Lynch said.
EXCLUSIVE: Ralph Paul Yarl, the Black teenager who was shot by a homeowner after having rung the wrong doorbell, was motionless and covered in blood when James Lynch found him unconscious. “I thought he was dead,” Lynch said. https://t.co/ZN35dYXfuM
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 17, 2023
Yarl, who was on his way to pick up his younger siblings, sustained gunshot wounds to his head and arm after approaching the wrong home. 85-year-old homeowner Andrew D. Lester has since been charged with two felonies stemming from the shooting. (RELATED: Woman Accidentally Pulls Into Wrong Driveway, Gets Fatally Shot)
Seeing that Yarl was apparently suffering a gunshot wound near his eye socket, Lynch said he gripped Yarl’s hand and began to feel for a pulse, asking the teen his name, his age and where he attended school. Lynch recalled that Yarl struggled to respond before successfully spelling his name, at which point he was joined by a neighbor who brought towels to help stem the bleeding. The two stayed with Yarl until paramedics arrived on the scene.
“No one deserves to lay there like that,” Lynch said. “He hasn’t even begun to live his life yet. He didn’t deserve to get shot.”
Lynch, however, does not consider himself a hero.
“I didn’t do anything but hold a kid’s hand so he wouldn’t feel alone. He had just gotten shot twice; he had a hole in the side of his head,” Lynch told NBC News. “That kid is tougher than I am.”
Yarl has since been released from the hospital and is currently recovering at home, according to CNN.