Posted on 02/26/2007 1:07:21 PM PST by truthandlife
econds after the roadside bomb that tore off part of his skull, Bob Woodruff said he had a brief out-of-body experience before losing consciousness for more than a month.
The former ABC anchor answered questions publicly Monday for the first time since the roadside bomb nearly killed him in Iraq on Jan. 29, ABC News is airing a prime-time special about Woodruff's recovery and the plight of other brain-injured Iraq veterans 10 p.m. EST Tuesday.
Some small pockmarks on the left side of his face and neck were the only signs of his injury visible during a meeting with reporters on Monday. Woodruff would occasionally struggle for a word while answering questions and said that while he wasn't 100 percent recovered, he was somewhere in the 90s.
He was standing with his head and upper body outside of a moving tank while on a reporting trip to Iraq when the bomb went off.
"When it actually exploded, I don't remember that," he said. "But I do remember immediately at that moment that I saw my body floating below me and a kind of whiteness."
He briefly lost consciousness, fell back into the tank and woke up to see cameraman Doug Vogt across from him. Woodruff remembered spitting up blood.
"I looked up at Doug and I saw his eyes big and afraid and just asking him if we were still alive and that's the last thing I remember," Woodruff said.
He was in a coma for 36 days. He woke up and vaguely remembered there was a bombing.
Woodruff will be interviewed by ABC's Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" Tuesday, and Oprah Winfrey later in the day. He and wife Lee wrote a book about their ordeal that will also be released Tuesday.
He described the long road back trying to put his memory together. The special shows Woodruff, during his recovery, looking at a picture of scissors and being unable to come up with the word.
"I couldn't remember my two young daughters _ not their names but their existence," Woodruff said. He has twin 6-year-old daughters, along with a son who's 15 and a daughter who's 13.
Woodruff hedged when asked if he would want to go back and report in Iraq before ABC News President David Westin cut him off.
"I will not send him," Westin said. "It just would not make sense. He's more vulnerable than he was before. It would be the height of recklessness, from my point of view, to allow Bob Woodruff to go back to Iraq."
Did he become a Christian through this experience?
Who would have ever thought Bob would exploit his own life for face time in front of a camera! I always thought he reserved that type of exploitation for others.
He makes me want to projectile vomit everytime I see his face.
bttt
Think he will donate any of the proceeds of his book to the care of soldiers that get injured like that every day over there?
Remember Paul?
Sometimes a person has a life changing event, and God brings themin closer to tesify of what they experience to others.
I'm both surprised and not surprised at the same time.
Did he become a Christian through this experience?
That is exactly the question that crossed my mind.
God came to him and said: I am not taking you this time because I want you to stay awhile and get out of the lying news organizations you belong to. I want you to be fair and balanced from now on. Do not be a David Gregory. Consider this a warning.
He works for ABC, by definition he can't be a Christian. Were he to become one they'd write it off to his brain injury. That's the state of belief or nonbelief among liberals today.
and not a word of thanks to the medic or corpsman who must have rendered immediate first aid to help save his sorry ass, huh?
"Did he become a Christian through this experience?"
Westin would've sent him back to Iraq if he did.
Wow, photo number 3 shows just how much of his skull was blown off. Later I look at #1 again and noticed it.
Extensive injuries indeed! I'm happy he survived.
"and not a word of thanks to the medic or corpsman who must have rendered immediate first aid to help save his sorry ass, huh?"
Thanks were formally relayed to all the military medical servicemen and women who helped him in his recovery when he left the hospital last year.
You sound very bitter, but I don't know why. Maybe you should pray over this.
Such is the state of modern journalism that the date of this incident is not given. Or did I miss it. Oh, I see Jan. 29, but doesn't every year have one?
He makes me want to projectile vomit everytime I see his face.
That was unkind, I think more people need to hear about such things
You guys are have hearts of stone!
David Gregory is a simple pile OS.
I can understand your point but after an injury like that, he probably doesn't remember.
I pulled a couple out of a car after an accident on base about 20 years ago. I stopped by the hospital to see how they did. I said hello and they were friendly enough but it was clear they did not recognize me, I wished them well and left. They probably still don't know who pulled them out of their car. I was just happy to see them alive and relatively well.
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