Wounded soldiers attend the opening of The Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, Texas January 29, 2007. Fourteen months after being injured by an explosion in Iraq, ABC news journalist Bob Woodruff told the story of his recovery in a prime-time special on Tuesday while also turning the camera on Iraq war veterans who survived traumatic brain injury without national attention. (Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The explosion in Iraq blew bits of rock into Bob Woodruff's neck, broke open his skull, and put the ABC News journalist in a coma for 36 days.
Fourteen months later, Woodruff tells the story of his recovery in a prime-time special on Tuesday but rather than dwell exclusively on his own dramatic narrative, Woodruff turns the camera on Iraq war veterans who survived traumatic brain injury without national attention.
Woodruff suffered traumatic brain injury and calls it "the signature injury of the war in Iraq," largely because combat troops in Iraq are so often exposed to improvised explosive devices.
While Woodruff recovered much better than his doctors expected, many veterans cannot walk or talk and require painstaking therapy or permanent attention.
He profiles some of them in a report that adds to concerns about the level of health care Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans receive after returning home.
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