Kimberly Dozier: Technically, I Was Dead | Newsweek Turning Points

A reporter, wounded in Iraq, fights to keep people from looking away.

By Kimberly Dozier | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated May 26, 2008

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It's hard to shake the whole "I almost died" thing. Put another way, many very well-meaning people will not let me leave it behind—in grocery stores, in gas stations or even at work. "Oh, you're … that reporter—from that car bomb. How are you? Are you in pain?" They can't comprehend how the shattered woman they saw on their TV screens almost two years ago, unconscious on a stretcher, got better. Maybe they can't quite believe it.

So to catch up those who may have forgotten: I'm a correspondent for CBS News. My team and I were hit by a car bomb in Baghdad on Memorial Day 2006. My colleagues, cameraman Paul Douglas and sound man James Brolan, were killed, as was the U.S. Army captain we were following, James Alex Funkhouser, and his Iraqi translator, known only as Sam.

At the bomb scene, I lost more than half my blood. The bomb "blew right through" me, as one of the surgeons later put it, peppering me with shrapnel, including a small shard to my brain, smashing both femurs and scorching off muscle and skin from hips to ankles on much of one leg and part of the second.

Once the rescue team got me to the Baghdad casualty hospital, I technically died about five times, or rather, I "coded." I just met one of the doctors who did the chest compressions on me. He complained that I "tried to die for two hours." (You won, doc.) Then came the pain of two-dozen-plus surgeries, the whole learning-to-walk thing, more surgery and the slow return to jogging, then running. Throughout the first six months, there was the ever-present wallop of grief and guilt that comes from surviving when those around you have died.

So I was driven to write it down—or rather, suckered into it. The counselor and the Franciscan monk at Bethesda naval hospital who tricked me into it knew they were sending me on the most painful reporting assignment of my life. At first I cried every couple of pages, every few hundred words. I wanted to chuck my computer out the window.

That was a year and a half ago. I ended up rewriting the first nine chapters about five times. Then I was told by multiple publishers, "Too raw. Too much medical detail. Too emotional." And also, "Sorry, but books on Iraq don't sell. The public doesn't want to hear about that anymore."

Thank you for Kimberly for reporting about one of the most difficult times anyone can experience in their life. You did your report with dedication and the inter-strength that says "Yes, I've been there and done that" without sounding like a cry-baby. The body heals itself from the trauma it suffered with the help of medical science and the mind heals itself with the help of both the person who is injured and the help of a larger supporting cast than most people will ever know. The troops of today are no different than what our nation has produced for over 200 years. They would rather be any place besides a combat zone, but once there, they want to see the job that was started brought to an honorable and final conclusion so that the sacrifices made by so many wil not have been in vain. Speaking as a veteran of a conflict decades ago, I know what you feel about being alive after you suffered massive injuries when others around you on that fateful day didn't survive. I've not let my disabilities get in the way of doing many good things for others since 1968. I feel there was a reason I survived my fateful day, a reason to live and a reason to look at life as a gift that can be taken away in an instant. Kimberly, you to have a reason to live and continue to tell your story. Some don't want to hear it, but 40 years from know it will still be important.

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Posted By: openyoureyes221 @ 05/28/2008 5:35:14 PM

steve02001 when did the Iraquis start a civil war and why were we not informed of this war.
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Posted By: paul962 @ 05/25/2008 5:18:44 AM

As a 100% disabled veteran I can fully appreciate what it can entail to give everything to your profession. Your life excepted.
There are as many pathways to patriotism as there are citizens of our beloved republic.
I, for one am thankful you are still on yours. i know that your appreciation for the foundational aspects of your beliefs and ideals are forever both different and very much enhanced with the simple complexity that is your experiences super imposed upon your current world view.
Have a wonderful day my dear fellow citizen.
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Posted By: micrman @ 05/23/2008 7:15:52 PM

Thank you for Kimberly for reporting about one of the most difficult times anyone can experience in their life. You did your report with dedication and the inter-strength that says "Yes, I've been there and done that" without sounding like a cry-baby. The body heals itself from the trauma it suffered with the help of medical science and the mind heals itself with the help of both the person who is injured and the help of a larger supporting cast than most people will ever know. The troops of today are no different than what our nation has produced for over 200 years. They would rather be any place besides a combat zone, but once there, they want to see the job that was started brought to an honorable and final conclusion so that the sacrifices made by so many wil not have been in vain. Speaking as a veteran of a conflict decades ago, I know what you feel about being alive after you suffered massive injuries when others around you on that fateful day didn't survive. I've not let my disabilities get in the way of doing many good things for others since 1968. I feel there was a reason I survived my fateful day, a reason to live and a reason to look at life as a gift that can be taken away in an instant. Kimberly, you to have a reason to live and continue to tell your story. Some don't want to hear it, but 40 years from know it will still be important.