Two CBS crew members killed, reporter seriously injured

[odannyboy]

She has been there since the beginning and is an outstanding reporter. I will miss her reports and hope she makes a complete recovery.

2 CBS Crew Members, U.S. Soldier Killed In Baghdad

Correspondent Kimberly Dozier Injured In Car Bombing

Two members of a CBS News team, veteran cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and soundman James Brolan, 42, were killed and correspondent Kimberly Dozier, 39, was seriously injured Monday when the U.S. Army unit in which they were embedded was attacked.

A U.S. soldier was also killed in the attack, and six others were wounded.

Dozier was in critical condition at a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad and underwent two surgeries for injuries from the bombing. Doctors successfully removed shrapnel from Dozier's head but her more serious injuries are to her lower body, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

The CBS crew was on a patrol with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, when their convoy was hit. They were reporting a "routine" story, covering American troops for Memorial Day. The trio was only planning to be out for a few hours, in order to get back to the CBS Baghdad bureau in time to edit their piece.

Dozier, Douglas and Brolan got out of their armored vehicle in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad when the U.S. troops they accompanied stopped to inspect a checkpoint manned by the Iraqi army. That's when a nearby car packed with explosives detonated. Douglas and Brolan died at the scene.

Dozier sustained serious injuries and was flown to a U.S. military hospital inside Baghada's Green Zone, where she underwent surgery. She is in critical condition, but doctors are cautiously optimistic about her prognosis.

Dozier's relatives were planning to head to Germany, a man who answered the phone at her mother's home in Maryland said Monday night. The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southern Germany is the U.S. military's largest overseas hospital.

Douglas, who was British, leaves a wife, Linda; two daughters, Kelly, 29, and Joanne, 26; and three grandchildren. Brolan, who was also British, leaves a wife, Geraldine, and two children, Sam, 17, and Agatha, 12.

The attack was among a wave of car and roadside bombs that left about three dozen people dead before noon Monday, including one explosion that killed 10 people on a bus. Nearly all the attacks occurred in Baghdad.

"This is a devastating loss for CBS News," said Sean McManus, President, CBS News and Sports, in a CBS statement. "Kimberly, Paul and James were veterans of war coverage who proved their bravery and dedication every single day. They always volunteered for dangerous assignments and were invaluable in our attempt to report the news to the American public."

"Our deepest sympathy goes out to the families of Paul and James, and we are hoping and praying for a complete recovery by Kimberly. Countless men and women put their lives on the line, day in and day out, in Iraq and other dangerous spots around the world, and they deserve our utmost respect and gratitude for the work they do," McManus said.

Douglas, 48, had worked for CBS News in many countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Rwanda and Bosnia, since the early 1990s. He leaves behind a wife, two daughters and three grandchildren. Brolan, 42, was a freelancer who had worked with CBS News in Baghdad and Afghanistan over the past year. He was part of the CBS News team that had received a 2006 Overseas Press Club Award for its reporting on the Pakistan earthquake.

"James was the best dad, the best husband and the best mate to be with in a tight spot out in the field," Brolan's family said in a statement.

Dozier, 39, has been a CBS News correspondent, reporting from Iraq, for the past three years, Before that, she served as London bureau chief and chief European correspondent for CBS Radio News from 1996-2002. Dozier is the recipient of three American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT) Gracie Awards for her radio reports on Mideast violence, Kosovo and the Afghan war.

Dozier and her London-based crew are among the latest American television journalists to become casualties in Iraq. Former ABC News "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt suffered severe injuries in a roadside bombing in Iraq Jan. 29, 2006. Woodruff is still recovering from serious head injuries and broken bones. Cameraman Vogt has returned home to France for more rehab.

On April 6, 2003, David Bloom, 39, an American journalist for NBC television, embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq died from an apparent blood clot near Baghdad.

All over the region, explosions began just after dawn, with one roadside bomb killing 10 people and injuring another 12 who worked for an Iranian organization opposed to the regime in Iran, police said.

A car bomb parked near Baghdad's main Sunni Abu Hanifa mosque killed at least nine Iraqi civilians and wounded 25, said Saif al-Janabi, director of Noaman hospital. It exploded at noon in north Baghdad's Azamiyah neighborhood and was so powerful it vaporized the vehicle. Rescue crews and Iraqi army soldiers were carrying stretchers toward waiting ambulances, Associated Press TV footage showed.

A bomb planted in a parked minivan killed at least seven and injured at least 20 when it exploded at the entrance to an open-air market selling secondhand clothes in the northern Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah.

Another parked car bomb exploded near Ibin al-Haitham college in Azamiyah, also in northern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding at least five others - including four Iraqi soldiers, police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said.

In Baghdad's Tahariyat Square, a parked car bomb targeting an American convoy killed one civilian and injured nine , police Lt. Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman said. It was not known if there were any U.S. casualties, but at least one Humvee was seen on fire.

A second bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol near the square killed one and wounded 10 - including four police.

http://cbs4.com/national/topstories_...149110312.html