Even now, 25 years later, many John Lennon fans can vividly recall the helplessness and frustration they felt on Dec. 8, 1980, when the singer was shot outside the Dakota.

So can Dr. Stephan G. Lynn, who was running the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital that night. He felt Lennon's death firsthand: He was the one who grasped Lennon's heart, massaging it to try to force it to pump again. It never did.

"There was just nothing left to pump," Dr. Lynn recalled in an interview. "There was so much damage to the major blood vessels leading from the heart" that his blood just leaked out.

Dr. Lynn, 58, is still an emergency physician at Roosevelt. He stood in the bustling emergency room in his scrubs one recent morning and recalled the night 25 years ago when the police carried in the singer. Lennon's vital signs showed that he was already dead when he arrived at the emergency room, and after a 20-minute battle to resuscitate him, Dr. Lynn and two other doctors officially declared him dead.