Bob Woodruff Talks About TBI, PTSD, and Who His Wife Thinks is Hot

Bob Woodruff, a reporter for ABC News and Traumatic Brain Injury survivor, is amazed by the state-of-the-art National Intrepid Center of Excellence, the brand new hospital on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland where Imus was this morning.

“I think ultimately the number is going to be $75 million to pull this off,” he said of the cost of building NICoE, which was funded entirely by private donations. “It is pretty shocking, given this entire collapse of the economy. It shows you exactly what people want to do for those who are coming back from the war.”

Bethesda has special meaning for Woodruff, and for his family; while covering the war in Iraq in 2006, Woodruff was seriously injured when a roadside bomb exploded under his vehicle. He returned to the United States in grave condition, and began his long road to recovery at the NNMC.

“I’ve lost memories here and there, I still have some words that I can’t recall,” he admitted. “No one ever expected that I could have gotten to this point, and a lot of it is because of what happened to me in Bethesda.”

At the time Woodruff was injured, diagnoses like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and TBI were still pretty invisible. “We can certainly see those who have lost their arms or their legs, those who were blinded or burnt,” he told Imus, who helped raise money not only for NICoE, but for the Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, which opened in 2007.

The medical ability to save more lives has left many soldiers reeling from TBI and PTSD. “Guys have the kinds of issues that need to be dealt with, that have not really been well dealt with in the beginning years of these wars,” said Woodruff, whose Bob Woodruff Family Foundation for Traumatic Brain Injury raises money to assist military families with cognitive rehabilitation for injured vets.

The NICoE and BAMC were funded by private donations and not by the government, a notion that bothered Imus initially until his pal Bill White, the former president of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, explained why that’s not such a bad thing.

“It’s important that regular citizens contribute money,” Imus explained. “So these soldiers know we actually care about them.”

Of equal interest to Imus this morning was how Woodruff’s loveable wife Lee was doing because, as he bluntly put it, “Everybody on the program is in love with your wife.”

Turns out the feeling is mutual. “I don’t know why, but she’s deeply in love with you,” Woodruff, baffled, told the I-Man. “Maybe it’s because you donated money to those injured in these wars. Or, maybe it’s because you’re incredibly hot.”

Even the I-Man had to chuckle at that possibility, saying, “I don’t think it’s the latter.”

-Julie Kanfer