A Devastating Injury Spawns New Role for TV Anchor Bob Woodruff and Wife

A Devastating Injury Spawns New Role for TV Anchor and Wife
By Kerry Hannon|May 9, 2011

Lee Woodruff's first book, In an Instant, is aptly named. She begins with this sentence: "There is a ride at Disney World called the Tower of Terror, and on the weekend of January 28, 2006, my four children, even the twin 5-year-olds, begged me to go on that ride over and over again."

The ride begins on a creaky elevator, and then it suddenly drops. "The descent is so rapid, so sudden, that it almost sucks your diaphragm up into your throat... there is a moment where you are literally suspended in air, too stunned to scream."

The following morning at 7 a.m., while her kids slept in their hotel room, the ride began anew when she learned that her husband, ABC News Anchor Bob Woodruff, was critically injured in Iraq.

While embedded with the military, the newsman suffered a traumatic brain injury when an explosive device went off near the tank he was riding in. Bob Woodruff's five-year recovery has been painful and protracted at times, and the experience led the family to take on an unexpected mission.

Spurred by the stories of brain-injured soldiers at Bethesda Naval Hospital, the couple created the Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) to aid injured service members and their families, with a special emphasis on the hidden injuries of war -- traumatic brain injury (TBI) and combat stress.

"Difficult experiences can't help but force life in new directions," says Lee Woodruff, who has written another book, Perfectly Imperfect: A Life in Progress.
read more here
A Devastating Injury Spawns New Role for TV Anchor and Wife