'I'm lucky,' ABC's Bob Woodruff says

0 Comments | USA TODAY, February, 2007 | by Peter Johnson

NEW YORK -- Spend some time talking to ABC's Bob Woodruff, and it's nearly impossible to tell that he was almost been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq on Jan. 29, 2006, and sustained such severe brain trauma that it required removing part of his skull.

"I'm lucky," Woodruff told reporters Monday in his first interview since he was wounded. "This turned out a lot better than it could have."

His face, some scars aside, looks about the same as it did when he co-anchored World News Tonight for just 27 days, until the 28th nearly cost him his life as he rode atop a tank in Taji, north of Baghdad.

Woodruff says he still has difficulty remembering certain words, but as he fields questions, his mind -- he's a lawyer -- seems as sharp as ever. That prompts...