A neighbor who rushed to help Ralph Yarl after he was shot when he mistakenly rang the wrong doorbell has spoken out.
On April 13, 16-year-old Yarl had been in the midst of picking up his 11-year-old brothers from a friend's house in Kansas City, Missouri, when he accidentally rang the doorbell of the wrong house.
The homeowner, 84-year-old Andrew D. Lester, responded to the teenager's ringing by shooting him in the head and then opening fire again on his arm after he fell to the ground.
Ralph was bleeding out after the horrific incident and somehow had the strength to go door to door in the neighborhood to ask for help.
His aunt, Faith Spoonmore, wrote in the GoFundMe post she set up for her nephew that the teen ran to three different homes before someone finally agreed to help him.
That's when mechanic James Lynch heard the commotion and rushed to Ralph's side. The 42-year-old told NBC News that he had just gotten out of the shower when he noticed a boy banging on someone’s door.
"I heard somebody screaming, 'Help! Help! I’ve been shot,'" the father of three told the outlet. He then jumped over his fence and ran to Yarl, whose face and arms were covered in blood. Lynch said that he saw what seemed to be a head wound near the young boy's eye socket.
"I thought he was dead," Lynch told the outlet. "No one deserves to lay there like that. He hasn’t even begun to live his life yet. He didn’t deserve to get shot."
The good samaritan said he remembered his old Eagle Scout training and began nursing first aid with the help of another neighbor who arrived with some towels to stop the bleeding.
"'I'm going to grab your hand really tight," Lynch said he told Ralph before checking his wrist for a pulse. He also asked the teen for his name - which he managed to spell - and what school he attends as they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
While Lynch has been praised for his quick response, he has dusted off the idea that he is a hero, stating: "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. That kid is tougher than I am," he told the publication.
After news of the horrific incident went public, a donation page was set up by Yarl's aunt to pay for his medical bills and therapy.
Over $3.2 million has been raised at the time of writing, with almost 70,000 people donating. Any additional money will be going towards his college education and a trip to West Africa.
Yarl survived the shooting and is recovering at home, having been released from the hospital, family attorney Ben Crump said.
"The prognosis is that he’s young and strong and he’s a fighter… but it’s just the beginning — he’s not out of the woods yet," he said about the young boy, as cited by The New York Post. "The great thing is [doctors] said he was stable enough to go to his home."
Meanwhile, Lester was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action. A warrant was issued for his arrest and a bond of $200,000 was set for him, per the outlet.
