A Fox News journalist who was badly wounded in a car bombing during a correspondence mission in Ukraine has credited his deceased colleague and a vision he had of his daughters with saving his life.
Benjamin Hall was on assignment in Kyiv when Russian forces struck a vehicle that he and two of his colleagues, cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, were travelling in. Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova did not survive the attack.
Speaking to Fox and Friends in his first television appearance since the attack, Hall said he was “all but dead” when the second bomb landed near his team's vehicle, but a vision he had of his daughters gave him the strength to survive.
“Improbably, out of this crippling nothingness, a figure came through and I heard a familiar voice as real as anything I'd ever known. 'Daddy, you've got to get out of the car,'” he said, reading from his coming memoir.
“And if it weren't for them bringing me back, there's no way I would be here today. And I'm alive and I was saved thanks to them and I was saved thanks to Pierre, our cameraman, who had gotten out of the car just before me.
“The two of us lay there for about 40 minutes and talked. He [Zakrzewski] passed away. But the journey that continued was about me being saved.”
Hall was taken to Poland before he was eventually transferred to an army medical centre near San Antonio, Texas, where he spent months recovering.
The journalist said he felt strong despite his injuries.
“I've got one leg, I've got no feet. I see through one eye. I got one workable hand. I was burnt all over. And I feel stronger. I feel more confident than I ever have,” he said.
HarperCollins Publishers announced on Thursday that Hall's memoir Saved: A War Reporter’s Mission to Come Home will be released on March 14, the anniversary of the attack.
