Woodruff scores Johnson scoop

Woodruff scores Johnson scoop

September 4, 2007

BY DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK — While it’s hard to think of positives to come out of a severe brain injury, here’s one: It just helped ABC News’ Bob Woodruff score a scoop.

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) turned to Woodruff for a ”Nightline” report on his recovery and return to public life this week following a brain hemorrhage.

Johnson’s health was a mystery and of great interest because Democratic control of the Senate was at stake if he couldn’t continue.

ABC said Woodruff and Johnson reached out to each other late last winter. Johnson’s wife had read the book Woodruff and wife Lee wrote about the 2006 bombing in which Woodruff was wounded and his recuperation.

”When you’re talking publicly about what’s going on, you wonder how much you have to explain about what you’re going through,” Woodruff said. ”I think they knew they didn’t have to do that with me.”

Johnson became disoriented on Dec. 13 while on a conference call with reporters and was taken immediately to the hospital. He had emergency surgery for arteriovenous malformation, a condition that causes arteries and veins in the brain to become tangled and sometimes burst.

Woodruff visited Johnson in April and June to check on the senator’s progress in learning how to walk and talk again. He was able to point out, to Johnson’s knowing smile, how difficulty and slowness in speaking doesn’t necessarily mean the brain is processing thoughts slowly. AP