Bob Woodruff, ABC Newsman Injured in Iraq, Discusses How Life Changed in an Instant

"ABC World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff was riding the wave of success in January 2006, but in an instant, life for him and his family changed forever. While reporting from Iraq, the vehicle he was riding detonated an improvised explosive device (IED). Woodruff was nearly killed, suffered damaging brain trauma and spent 36 days in a coma.

I attended the ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership's 2007 Annual Meeting & Exposition this past week in Chicago. On Sunday, I had the opportunity to hear ABC News White House Correspondent Ann Compton interview Bob Woodruff and his wife, Lee, during the meeting's opening program and learn about his amazing journey.

Woodruff revealed he's "lost the ability to use a lot of words," and it's "been difficult to speak," yet after a year and a half, he's recovering quickly compared to the "wounded warriors" returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. These are soldiers with traumatic brain injuries. They "look normal" but have gone through significant mental changes.

"Got in a little bit of trouble."

Compton steered the conversation towards Woodruff's jump into journalism. Woodruff explained how the day after September 11, 1988, the couple's wedding day, he and his new bride moved to Beijing, China where he taught American law at Zheng Fa University. Interjecting her humor, Lee told the audience she "was not going [to China] without the ring."

Woodruff joked how he incorporated the book "Animal Farm" into the classroom and "got in a little bit of trouble" for doing so. While teaching, he landed a side job as a fixer with CBS, since he knew the language and lay of the land. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 broke out, sending him into the depths of breaking news and leaving him hungry for the journalism world.

Compton asked Lee if there's any place in the world she doesn't want Woodruff to go. "Yes, a few [places]," she replied.

Woodruff, who reported from Iraq five times said, "2004 was the first time Lee didn't want me to go."

"I think it's too dangerous. Covering a war is a game of roulette," Lee said.

Woodruff replied, "I can no longer go to 90% of the countries. No Iraq, no Afghanistan."

"It's just really war zones," Lee added as the audience laughed.

"I was a real jerk."

"To this day, I'm filled with guilt about what I did to my family. My decisions to go to these places," Woodruff said as the conversation turned towards the events of January 29, 2006, the day his life changed in an instant.

Recounting the moment of the explosion, he recalled feeling a burst of air then rocks. He was knocked unconscious and remembers he "woke up and asked Vinnie Malhotra (Woodruff's then producer), 'are we alive?'"

After that, Woodruff can't remember anything else and spent the next 36 days in a coma. ABC cameraman Doug Vogt was injured in the blast, too.

"He's a walking miracle," Lee said as she proceeded to describe her husband's severe injuries: damage to the left temporal lobe of the brain, where information comes in and out. A large fraction of his skull was unsalvageable and replaced with a plastic skull. There is "no medical reason why he should be here today and speak coherently," she said as she reached over to hold Woodruff's hand.

"How have you changed?" Compton asked.

"I was a real jerk before but now I'm not," Woodruff joked.

"...get ready for the Bossman."

Being a journalist and having lost his expanded vocabulary has been frustrating for Woodruff, since the industry is "all about words." Some words come back to him while he needs to restudy most. "ABC has been wonderful to allow me to do other types of reporting," said Woodruff.

Lee gave an example of how powerful the brain is. She recounted how Bruce Springsteen learned Woodruff was a fan and wrote a letter wishing him well. Lee read the letter and "embellished" a bit by telling the comatose Woodruff that Springsteen would play a private concert for him once he got well.

Two days after Woodruff awoke from the coma, he told Lee he needed one of these, and mimicked playing the guitar.

"A guitar?" She asked.

"I need to get ready for the Bossman," he replied.

Lee joked how she spent 36 days by his side telling him how she loved him, massaging his feet and clipping his toes nails and all he remembered was a letter from Bruce Springsteen.

"He hasn't played yet," Woodruff told the audience.

On a mission.

As a result of his injury, the Woodruffs have made it a mission to raise awareness and offer support to those military members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and suffering Traumatic Brain Injury. The Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury has been established to help accomplish their mission.

The couple co-authored "In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing." The book centers around Woodruff's near-death experience and their journey of love and recovery. In journal format, they each wrote entries about the life they share. Sometimes their perspectives on specific events differ, their love and devotion for each other sparkles throughout the book.

Sources:
Lee and Bob Woodruff, Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury
ASAE & the Center for Association Leadership's 2007 Annual Meeting & Exposition, Chicago, August 12, 2007