VERNE GAY: Bob Woodruff and Oprah
I don't know about you but I can't read or hear enough about Bob Woodruff, the injured and now recovered ABC Newsman who was nearly killed in Iraq last year and has lived to tell the story in stunning documentary that will air tonight on ABC at 10.
Which, by the way, you must see.
I've known him slightly over the years, interviewed him a few times, even went to the same college (he was a few classes behind me, per my recollection.) And I can attest to this fact: He's one of the great guys of this business. Woodruff is, was, and presumably always will be, a superb journalist but also a first-rate human being - a combination that can be a little more singular than you might imagine in TV news. His injury was shattering to his family, but I was deeply shocked as well. But then, who wasn't? He's not some blow-dried twit with wide-open spaces from ear to ear, but an extremely bright and serious journalist who also turned out to be a natural big league anchor and perfectly logical heir to Peter Jennings. (Jennings, I was once told, believed Woodruff should be the guy to replace him – quite the admission from Peter who was in no hurry to leave the anchor chair.) In one instant, all of that was nearly wiped out. A little known fact about Woodruff: Prior to his injury he and his brothers were caring for their father in Michigan suffering from Alzheimer's. Watching videos of his recovery process on "Oprah" this afternoon, I was struck by the fact that Woodruff’s injuries were also probably similar to late-stage dementia - forgotten words, disorientation, and (probably) depression.
The "Oprah" special added a few other disturbing layers to this story: The show featured X-rays of Woodruff's rock-and-shrapnel-pitted head, with hundreds of pebbles lodged in the skull, or what was left of it, along with an unforgettable word picture from his wife, Lee, who said that when she saw him lying in a hospital "the left side of his face looked like a monster...his brain was swollen out of his head like a rugby ball...it was huge." Lee added that he would probably have died or been left in a permanent vegetative state had the injury occurred in the States because doctors here - obviously - don't exactly see a lot of traumatic brain injuries caused by roadside bombs. (They removed his shattered skull to allow the brain to swell, which averted a massive die-off of brain cells.)
"I think something positive has happened" out of the injury, he told Oprah, which was a chance "to meet other soldiers and marines who had gone through this. That's very very important. I think even journalists have not told enough stories about those that have survived this...You've got a new kind of war [and soldiers] coming back have something called traumatic brain injuries. There have been some studies that show that up to ten percent of those w ho return from the war actually have TBI."
Oprah noted, by the way, that the Woodruffs - who also co-wrote a book out today called "In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing" - have set up a fund for soldiers with TBI.