STORM2K

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/ ... index.html



They just replaced Peter Jennings with him and Elizabeth Vargas at the beginning of the month.

Wow, hope he heals quickly.

It seems like it will be a while before he does come back to his anchor duties. They said he's had multiple surgeries already.

Wow hope he recovers quickly.

Body Armor Likely Saved ABC News Pair

POSTED: 9:31 am EST January 30, 2006
UPDATED: 9:31 am EST January 30, 2006

NEW YORK -- Surgeons removed shrapnel from ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff's head and neck, a family friend said Monday, and a hospital official said body armor likely saved the journalist's life.

Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were seriously injured when a roadside bomb exploded Sunday while they standing in the open hatch of an Iraqi military vehicle. They underwent surgery in Iraq, then were flown to a U.S. military base in Germany for further treatment.

"They're both very seriously injured, but stable," said Col. Bryan Gamble, commander of the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in western Germany. He said both men were heavily sedated and under the care of the hospital's trauma team.

Their body armor likely saved them, "otherwise these would have been fatal wounds," Gamble said.

Woodruff, the new co-anchor of "World News Tonight," had serious head wounds and broken bones, and Vogt also suffered head injuries, ABC News said. The network said the mens' wives were at the hospital and talking with doctors Monday.

Former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw said Monday that he had spoken with Woodruff's wife, Lee, and said the family told him they had received "some encouraging news."

"The doctors had told them once they arrived that the brain swelling had gone down. In Bob's case, that had been a big concern. Yesterday they had to operate and remove part of the skull cap to relieve some of the swelling," Brokaw said on NBC'S "Today" show.

The family also learned some details about the explosion from people who were there, Brokaw said.

"Immediately after the explosion he turned to his producer and said 'Am I alive?' and 'Don't tell Lee,' and then he began to cry out in excruciating pain," Brokaw said.

He said the family told him doctors don't know for sure whether shrapnel penetrated Woodruff's brain but they were removing additional shrapnel from his neck area.

ABC News President David Westin, speaking on "Good Morning America," said risks to news personnel are assessed every day in a country where there were 221 attacks by explosive devices last week alone. But it's important to cover the news, he said.

"We all know there are substantial risks," Westin said. "At the same time, what we do is report the news. We report the stories such as Iraq, and it's a dilemma we struggle with all along because frankly, we don't get to report as much in Iraq as we'd like to because of security."

Woodruff and Vogt, an award-winning cameraman, were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and traveling in a convoy with U.S. and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad when the device exploded. An Iraqi solder also was hurt.

"Doug was conscious, and I was able to reassure him we were getting them care. I spoke to Bob also and walked with them to the helicopter," said ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks.

Woodruff and Vogt had been ridding in an Iraqi military vehicle to tell the war from the Iraqi soldiers' perspective.

The injuries were a blow to ABC News, still recovering from the cancer death of Peter Jennings in August. Woodruff and co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas had assumed Jennings' old job at "World News Tonight" earlier this month.

"Bob and Doug were in Iraq doing what reporters do, trying to find out what's happening there up-close and firsthand. All of us are mindful of the risks and the dangers," Vargas said Sunday night in a closing note.

Woodruff, 44, a father of four, has been at ABC News since 1996. He grew up in Michigan and became a corporate lawyer in New York, but changed fields soon after a stint teaching law in Beijing in 1989 and helping CBS News during the chaos of the Tiananmen Square protest.

Vogt, 46, is a three-time Emmy award-winning cameraman from Canada who has spent the last 20 years based in Europe covering global events for CBC, BBC and now exclusively for ABC News. He lives in Aix-en-Provence, France.

"He's the cameraman we all request when we go to the field because he's so good, a fantastic eye," said ABC News' Jim Sciutto, who is covering the war in Iraq.

On CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, anchor Bob Schieffer abandoned his commentary to wish Woodruff and Vogt well.

"It just hit us all like a lightning bolt because we've all been there," Schieffer later told The Associated Press.

Dozens of journalists have been injured, killed or kidnapped in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped Jan. 7 by gunmen who threatened to kill her if the U.S. didn't release Iraqi women in custody. She was among 250 foreigners who had been taken captive in the country since the U.S. invasion; at least 39 of those foreigners were killed. Carroll is still believed to be held in Iraq.

http://www.wral.com/news/6585060/detail.html

___


Associated Press Writer Jan Sliva in Landstuhl, Germany, contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://abcnews.go.com

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press.

Prayers and thoughts with Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt and their families and that the men have smooth and quick recoveries.

Eric

Having seen soldiers come through my base in the Middle East, I know how precious life is. IMO... Journalists should NOT be embedded with the troops... Baghdad is too rough for the 'non trained'. Non training as in.... not going through a weeks upon weeks of survival school known as Basic Training.

It is rough.... Believe me, I handled a transfer case (casket) of a soldier serving in Afghanistan.... Life is precious.

pojo wrote:Having seen soldiers come through my base in the Middle East, I know how precious life is. IMO... Journalists should NOT be embedded with the troops... Baghdad is too rough for the 'non trained'. Non training as in.... not going through a weeks upon weeks of survival school known as Basic Training.

It is rough.... Believe me, I handled a transfer case (casket) of a soldier serving in Afghanistan.... Life is precious.

Bob Woodruff has the training necessary to take the necessary risks associated with being in combat. More journalists have been killed than in vietnam. However, no soldier is prepared for what is happening in Iraq. NO SOLDIER.

wxcrazytwo wrote:

pojo wrote:Having seen soldiers come through my base in the Middle East, I know how precious life is. IMO... Journalists should NOT be embedded with the troops... Baghdad is too rough for the 'non trained'. Non training as in.... not going through a weeks upon weeks of survival school known as Basic Training.

It is rough.... Believe me, I handled a transfer case (casket) of a soldier serving in Afghanistan.... Life is precious.

Bob Woodruff has the training necessary to take the necessary risks associated with being in combat. More journalists have been killed than in vietnam. However, no soldier is prepared for what is happening in Iraq. NO SOLDIER.

Gee, you think? And given pojo just came back, I think she might have just a little more insight than the rest of us.

sunny wrote:

wxcrazytwo wrote:

pojo wrote:Having seen soldiers come through my base in the Middle East, I know how precious life is. IMO... Journalists should NOT be embedded with the troops... Baghdad is too rough for the 'non trained'. Non training as in.... not going through a weeks upon weeks of survival school known as Basic Training.

It is rough.... Believe me, I handled a transfer case (casket) of a soldier serving in Afghanistan.... Life is precious.

Bob Woodruff has the training necessary to take the necessary risks associated with being in combat. More journalists have been killed than in vietnam. However, no soldier is prepared for what is happening in Iraq. NO SOLDIER.

Gee, you think? And given pojo just came back, I think she might have just a little more insight than the rest of us.

When I was involved in the first gulf war, I was friends with a guy who wa there a year doing the mail. When he came back, allhe can say was how bad the mail system was, his first time being in Iraq, and how he lost a lot of weight. Otherwise, just because your there doesn't mean you know exactly what is going on. I am sure pojo knows what is going on around her surroundings, but I doubt she knows EVERYTHING of what is going on. I am sure she saw a lot.

wxcrazytwo wrote:

sunny wrote:

wxcrazytwo wrote:

pojo wrote:Having seen soldiers come through my base in the Middle East, I know how precious life is. IMO... Journalists should NOT be embedded with the troops... Baghdad is too rough for the 'non trained'. Non training as in.... not going through a weeks upon weeks of survival school known as Basic Training.

It is rough.... Believe me, I handled a transfer case (casket) of a soldier serving in Afghanistan.... Life is precious.

Bob Woodruff has the training necessary to take the necessary risks associated with being in combat. More journalists have been killed than in vietnam. However, no soldier is prepared for what is happening in Iraq. NO SOLDIER.

Gee, you think? And given pojo just came back, I think she might have just a little more insight than the rest of us.

When I was involved in the first gulf war, I was friends with a guy who wa there a year doing the mail. When he came back, allhe can say was how bad the mail system was, his first time being in Iraq, and how he lost a lot of weight. Otherwise, just because your there doesn't mean you know exactly what is going on. I am sure pojo knows what is going on around her surroundings, but I doubt she knows EVERYTHING of what is going on. I am sure she saw a lot.

Boy, you are more combative than usually today crazy!! But you really don't need to preach to me about Iraq. Brandon and I have spent quite a lot of time talking about it - and he was on the ground for a year in Baghdad.

Regardless of what capacity the soldier serves in, they are there. All positions matter.

Stratosphere747 wrote:I highly doubt we had any "mail personnel" in Iraq during the first Gulf war. Maybe you meant Saudi Arabia or Kuwait?

You might be right. It was 15 years ago.

sunny wrote:

wxcrazytwo wrote:

sunny wrote:

wxcrazytwo wrote:

pojo wrote:Having seen soldiers come through my base in the Middle East, I know how precious life is. IMO... Journalists should NOT be embedded with the troops... Baghdad is too rough for the 'non trained'. Non training as in.... not going through a weeks upon weeks of survival school known as Basic Training.

It is rough.... Believe me, I handled a transfer case (casket) of a soldier serving in Afghanistan.... Life is precious.

Bob Woodruff has the training necessary to take the necessary risks associated with being in combat. More journalists have been killed than in vietnam. However, no soldier is prepared for what is happening in Iraq. NO SOLDIER.

Gee, you think? And given pojo just came back, I think she might have just a little more insight than the rest of us.

When I was involved in the first gulf war, I was friends with a guy who wa there a year doing the mail. When he came back, allhe can say was how bad the mail system was, his first time being in Iraq, and how he lost a lot of weight. Otherwise, just because your there doesn't mean you know exactly what is going on. I am sure pojo knows what is going on around her surroundings, but I doubt she knows EVERYTHING of what is going on. I am sure she saw a lot.

Boy, you are more combative than usually today crazy!! But you really don't need to preach to me about Iraq. Brandon and I have spent quite a lot of time talking about it - and he was on the ground for a year in Baghdad.

Regardless of what capacity the soldier serves in, they are there. All positions matter.

Sorry, sunny, I have had crappy three weeks, and this week ain't any better. I am not preaching and I understand all positions count, but not all positions know what everyone else is doing.