ABC news anchor Bob Woodruff seriously injured in Iraq

[oceanblueeyes]

Are you thinking of Judy Woodruff?

No but now that you mention it is she kin to him? Who is the journalist that is on LKL a lot that knew about Deep Throat of the Nixon era?

I may have the names all messed up..........sorry.

IMO

Ocean

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Bob Woodruff, Washington Post, of Watergate fame.

YES! Thank you.

Are they kin?

Ocean

 

[Buzz Mills]

YES! Thank you.

Are they kin?

Ocean

The injured ABC Bob Woodruff was a lawyer in CA before he diecided to be a newscaster. He worked at a Redding, CA TV station for quite a few years before coming to SF for a while, and then on to New York, and national news.

 

[AlwaysShocked]

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the Washington Post Watergate reporters.

 

[AlwaysShocked]

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the Washington Post Watergate reporters.

And I must defend the VA Hospital system. I worked at the VA Hsopital in Pittsburgh, there was lots of respect for the vets and the care was as good if not better than in other local hospitals.

Yes, the VA system is a big system and for sure mistakes are made. But on the provider/patient level I saw good care.

Contact your state senator's office for assistance with your son's problems - it will get action faster that way.

Edited to add: I noticed that in the written reports the quote by the female reporter who was at the first medical center where the injured reporters were taken she states that the cameraman was conscious. She did not state that Mr. Woodruff was conscious.

Head injuries which need immediate surgery is usually brain swelling and/or a brain bleed. Not good at all.

 

[Tom'sGirl]

How old is Woodruff?

Born in 1961

 

[Buzz Mills]

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the Washington Post Watergate reporters.

And I must defend the VA Hospital system. I worked at the VA Hsopital in Pittsburgh, there was lots of respect for the vets and the care was as good if not better than in other local hospitals.

Yes, the VA system is a big system and for sure mistakes are made. But on the provider/patient level I saw good care.

Contact your state senator's office for assistance with your son's problems - it will get action faster that way.

Edited to add: I noticed that in the written reports the quote by the female reporter who was at the first medical center where the injured reporters were taken she states that the cameraman was conscious. She did not state that Mr. Woodruff was conscious.

Head injuries which need immediate surgery is usually brain swelling and/or a brain bleed. Not good at all.

Thanks for the correction, A/S. There was a woman, who walked (she said "with them"), and talked to both of them, when they were leaving the field station, to go to the central base, to be operated on. So apparently they were both conscious, although it seemed, according to what she said, and the way she said it, that Bob Woodruff was in worse shape.

Yes brain swelling is very common with head injuries, and the pressure needs to be relieved.to prevent permanent brain damage from the pressure.

 

[Marthatex]

Evidently today his swelling is down, according to MSNBC. They did have to operate on his skull, to relieve the swelling. Also shrapnel from his neck. The body armour saved him from death.

I don't know about VA hospitals, which are probably overloaded, but the military hospital they took them to in Iraq has a 96% success rate as far as soldiers that go on to survive. And most of the ones that go there to begin with are pretty severe injuries.

 

[IdahoMom]

Regarding head injuries, my brother had a severe one when he was a teenager, and he was never the same again. The brain is very delicate.

 

[Marthatex]

Evidently Doug is in better shape than Bob, according to the ABC announcement 30 min. ago. They hope to fly them back to the U.S. soon.

 

[HeartofTexas]

Here's a couple of recent quotes re Woodruff and Vogt:

“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 doctors didn’t know for sure whether shrapnel penetrated Woodruff’s brain, but they were removing additional shrapnel from his neck area, Brokaw said. He said Woodruff’s family had also learned more details about the explosion from witnesses.


“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.

http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/01/30/news/local/doc43de391d046ac396198024.txt

 

[BillyGoatGruff]

OMG that is so horrible. I wonder if they will now question the feasibility of "imbedded journalism".

Wouldn't it be interesting to do a research paper on the injured soldiers, how long they spent in recovery, what percentage have been able to go home, the percentage with lingering disabilities, how they are faring now, what they have to live on, and what they have to say about their experience at this point. If they feel they are getting proper treatment and benefits from the military.

I would love to do research like that. I wonder if they are going to be the forgotten ones.

The VA has all that. They have to keep such records for their budget proposals each year.

 

[Tom'sGirl]

Thanks for the correction, A/S. There was a woman, who walked (she said "with them"), and talked to both of them, when they were leaving the field station, to go to the central base, to be operated on. So apparently they were both conscious, although it seemed, according to what she said, and the way she said it, that Bob Woodruff was in worse shape.

Yes brain swelling is very common with head injuries, and the pressure needs to be relieved.to prevent permanent brain damage from the pressure.

Buzz, the woman was:

"He wanted to get out and report the story and not be locked in and taking information from someone else who was experiencing it," said ABC senior producer Kate Felsen, who had been working with Woodruff for the past two weeks.
"I spoke with both of them," Felsen continued. "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."

 

[Marthatex]

Vogt was "alert and joking" today; Woodruff opened his eyes briefly and responded to simuli to his hands and feet.

http://www.cnn.com

 

[cheko1]

I hope the brain swelling stays down........but the first 5 -7 days are crucial in brain injuries

 

[HeartofTexas]

Here's the latest from Drudge Report... no url yet since it's just one of Drudge's updates. It sounds a bit worse than I first thought, that is more broken bones, etc.

FLASH: ABCNEWS anchor suffered multiple broken ribs, shoulder and skull fracture. Bomb fragments pierced neck and back, though apparently not brain. Doctors have kept him unconscious; extent of head wounds was not clear. Woodruff underwent three hours of surgery on Monday to remove shrapnel... MORE...

 

[Buzz Mills]

ABC's Woodruff, Vogt Returning to U.S.

New York, NEW YORK - "World News Tonight" anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt left Germany Tuesday on a military plane bound for the United States, where they will receive further treatment for their injuries from a bomb blast in Iraq. A C-17 medical evacuation plane took off from the U.S. base at Ramstein on Tuesday afternoon carrying the two journalists and 28 U.S. service personnel, including several others hurt in Iraq.

Woodruff was showing signs of improvement Monday as a reeling ABC News division was coming to grips with what his injuries mean for the future of the recently revamped newscast and its ratings prospects. The plane carrying Woodruff and Vogt was bound for Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. The two injured journalists are to be taken to the brain injury center of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

http://tinyurl.com/8ttvq

 

[IdahoMom]

Some Troops Question Coverage

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060131-041958-8164r

snip
In Iraq, and throughout the military, there is sympathy and concern for anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, but there is also this question:
"Why do you think this is such a huge story?" wrote an officer stationed in Baqubah, Iraq, Monday via e-mail. "It's a bit stunning to us over here how absolutely dominant the story is on every network and front page. I mean, you'd think we lost the entire 1st Marine Division or something.

"There's a lot of grumbling from guys at all ranks about it. That's a really impolite and impolitic thing to say ... but it's what you would hear over here."

At least 2,242 troops have died in Iraq since the war's start, 1,753 of them killed in action. Another 16,000 have been injured, half of them seriously enough to require evacuation from the battlefield. According to the Pentagon, 60 percent of the deaths are the result of IEDs. IEDs have injured more than 9,200 troops, nine times more than gunshots.

"The point that is currently being made (is that) that press folks are more important than mere military folks," a senior military officer told UPI Tuesday.

The unavoidable consequence of war is this: People are savagely wounded and killed. Soldiers in Iraq watching the coverage on satellite television and reading the news on the Internet are getting the impression that the press has only just discovered this fact.

It's not quite as simple as that, of course. Military personnel often express frustration that the media harps on military casualty reports at the expense of what they consider their successes in Iraq.

 

[calus_3]

I hope they both recover but I have little sympathy for them. They were over there trying to find bad news to report because they hate GWB. They weren't visiting the schools or the newly elected women officials or the hospitals. They were in a war zone and if I understand correctly were trying to pursue some angle about how the Iraqi humvees aren't as armored as ours are...not sure what the insinuation is.

I have a buddy over there now and the pain in the a$$ reporter embedded with them...I think he works for the AJC....is constantly trying to stir up trouble. Any time there is action, he is second guessing the troops asking questions like "did you really have to kill him?" and trying to get the troups to say controversial things right after a firefight or an IED goes off. Most of the time, he is simply in their way.

I told my buddy when he first left that "if you have an embedded reporter with you and the fighting gets intense, SHOOT THE REPORTER FIRST. They are not on your side". I meant it.

Cal

 

[IdahoMom]

I hope they both recover but I have little sympathy for them. They were over there trying to find bad news to report because they hate GWB. They weren't visiting the schools or the newly elected women officials or the hospitals. They were in a war zone and if I understand correctly were trying to pursue some angle about how the Iraqi humvees aren't as armored as ours are...not sure what the insinuation is.

I have a buddy over there now and the pain in the a$$ reporter embedded with them...I think he works for the AJC....is constantly trying to stir up trouble. Any time there is action, he is second guessing the troops asking questions like "did you really have to kill him?" and trying to get the troups to say controversial things right after a firefight or an IED goes off. Most of the time, he is simply in their way.

I told my buddy when he first left that "if you have an embedded reporter with you and the fighting gets intense, SHOOT THE REPORTER FIRST. They are not on your side". I meant it.

Cal

But our American troops would be the first people he'd want to see with guns blazing if he was kidnapped and threatened with beheading! Damn hypocrites!