TV anchor and ex-cameraman seriously hurt in Iraq blast
ABC World News Tonight co-anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman were seriously injured when the Iraqi Army vehicle they were travelling in was attacked with an explosive device.
Both journalists received head injuries and Woodruff also had broken bones. They were in a stable condition today, following surgery at a US military hospital in Iraq.
They were being evacuated to medical centres in Germany, ABC News president David Westin said.
“We take this as good news, but the next few days will be critical,” Westin said.
Woodruff, 44, and Doug Vogt, an award-winning cameraman who once worked for the BBC, were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division and travelling in a convoy yesterday with US and Iraqi troops near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad.
They were wearing body armour and helmets but were standing up in the hatch of the mechanised vehicle when the device exploded, exposing them to shrapnel. An Iraqi solder was also hurt in the explosion.
ABC said the men were in the Iraqi vehicle – considered less secure than US military equipment – to get the perspective of the Iraqi military. They were aware the Iraqi forces were frequent targets of militant attacks, the network said.
ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks, said: “He wanted to get out and report the story and not be locked in and taking information from someone else who was experiencing it.”
She said she spoke to Woodruff and Vogt after the attack.
“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,” Felsen said.
The US military confirmed that Woodruff and Vogt were injured in the midday attack and said an investigation was under way.
Lara Logan, a CBS News correspondent who has covered Iraq, said the Taji area was considered particularly dangerous because it was the site of one of Saddam Hussein’s munitions dumps. Many of the explosives were believed to have fallen into the hands of militants, she said.
“I admire Bob for going with the Iraqis,” said Logan, who was blown 12 feet in the air by an explosion while with the US military in Afghanistan in 2003. “It’s important to hear their story and to experience it from their point of view. He did the right thing.”
It was another dose of bad news for ABC News, still recovering from the cancer death of Peter Jennings in August. Woodruff assumed Jennings’ old job anchoring World News Tonight with Elizabeth Vargas earlier this month.
Woodruff, 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 Tiananmen Square uprising.
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.
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