WASHINGTON – CBS News journalist Kimberly Dozier has been released from a rehabilitation hospital, where she had been recovering from critical injuries suffered during a May 29 car bomb attack in Iraq.
“I’m up on crutches and can even manage with a cane,” Dozier said in a statement issued by CBS News on Thursday. “It’s not pretty, but I’m walking on my own.”
Dozier, 40, suffered wounds to her head, legs and lower body when a roadside bomb exploded while she and her crew were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad. The blast killed her camera crew – Paul Douglas and James Brolan, both of Britain.
“The last I saw Paul and James, they were rushing from their Humvee to ‘get the shot’ of a young U.S. Army captain, James Funkhouser Jr., greeting Iraqi locals at a streetside tea stand,” Dozier said.
The blast killed the three men and an Iraqi translator, and seriously wounded Dozier.
After she was stabilized by an Army medic, she was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. On June 7, she was transported to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where she underwent intensive physical therapy. She was moved to Kernan Hospital, a rehabilitation facility in the Baltimore area, on July 17 and remained there until her release Wednesday.
Dozier will continue her rehabilitation on an outpatient basis.
Since the blast, she has undergone at least a dozen surgical procedures, including one operation that lasted about 11 hours.
“I still face a couple minor surgeries, but overall, the prognosis is far better than the docs had hoped just after I’d reached Germany,” she said.
Dozier said she’s received so many cards and e-mails wishing her well since the attack that it was like having 10,000 guardian angels on her shoulders.
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