Lee and Bob Woodruff

Bob Woodruff was named co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight in December 2005. On January 29, 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, he was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq. Lee and Bob Woodruff published In an Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing in early 2007.

From a Q & A with the Stanford School of Medicine’s Paul Costello :

Bob, right after the IED went off you had a “white light” experience. What do you make of that?

Bob: I can only explain what I saw. And that was just me floating down below me. It only lasted about a minute. I didn’t see much beyond that. It’s probably the way it’s going to look when I do it again, and this time go the other direction.

So do you think that that’s the line of demarcation between life and death?

Bob: I don’t think we can really know until something happens later on. I will say that it looks pretty comfortable to me and I don’t really have much fear of death because of it.

Neither of you is from a military family. Now you’ve been thrust in a military environment. What was it like for you at the hospital, Lee?

Lee: At first it was disorienting, and then I really relaxed into it because, in the end, doctors are doctors and hospitals are hospitals and people are people. We began to feel the rhythm of the “ma’am” and the “sir” and all of that. And understand how truly lucky and grateful we were to have had this happen in the arms of the military because there was no better place for Bob to be.

Read the entire interview.

The Page 99 Test: In An Instant.

--Marshal Zeringue