Firefighters meet the man they saved

DENVER - Robert Lynch would tell you he considers himself pretty lucky, even though at 29, he has to re-learn how to be a son, a husband and a father to his four children.

"(I) just remember waking up in the hospital," he said when asked what happened.

"I miss the old Robert," said his wife, Yolanda, "Obnoxious, annoying, being loud. He's quiet, he don't say much, if you ask him a question, he'll give you a quick answer."

He changed after an accident last September.

While installing a hydraulic lift at Denver's Tech Center, Robert was crushed underneath it. The machine weighs approximately 25,000 pounds.

He doesn't remember what happened, but Yolanda does.

"They told me at the scene they pronounced him dead, but they brought him back," she said, "I was just crying, just thinking, 'How am I going to do it if he's gone, with all four kids?'"

The Denver Fire Department was first on the scene. Units from Stations 13 and 22 responded.

"We found Robert pinned with only his head exposed and out on the concrete," remembered Station 22 Lieutenant Dale Chavez. "There is no way I thought he'd be alive today."

On Wednesday, Chavez met Robert and his family for the first time. Firefighters threw the Lynchs a lunch.

The firefighters who were first on the scene shook hands with Lynch for the first time, and noted he looked a little different than the last time they saw him.

"It was amazing," said Chavez, "It was a cooperative effort, from Denver, to South Metro to bystanders."

Chavez says bystanders held 2x4s under the machine pinning Robert, trying to lift it. However, it wasn't until the firemen used hydraulic power tools that they could get the already blue Robert out.

Robert's mother, Mary, says she is grateful for the firefighters and paramedics who saved her son's life, but says "thank you" doesn't seem to be enough.

"I wanted to do something for them and they cooked us a meal," she said.

Denver Fire Chief Larry Trujillo attended the lunch. He thanked his firefighters for the life saved and presented the family with some department souvenirs.

Chavez says in 17 years on the job, it still keeps surprising him.

"Just when I keep thinking I see it all, I see something new like this," he said. "Just wasn't his time to go, his number wasn't up yet. He's here today to raise his family."

Robert, who's still going through some physical therapy, says he hopes to go back to work in a few weeks.