Drake Center: Specialized Medical & Rehabilitative Care

About Bob Woodruff

Bob Woodruff joined ABC News in 1996 and has covered major stories throughout the country and around the world for the network. He was named co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight" in December 2005. On January 29, 2006, while reporting on U.S. and Iraqi security forces, Woodruff was seriously injured by a roadside bomb that struck his vehicle near Taji, Iraq.
In February 2007, just 13 months after being wounded in Iraq, Woodruff returned to ABC News with his first on-air report, "To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports." The hour-long, primetime documentary chronicled his traumatic brain injury (TBI), his painstaking recovery, and the plight of thousands of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with similar injuries. Woodruff is continuing to cover traumatic brain injuries for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms as well as other stories around the nation and the world.

Previously the anchor of the weekend edition of "World News Tonight" and one of ABC News' top correspondents, Woodruff has covered major stories both in the United States and overseas. His reports from New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina helped focus the nation's attention on the building tragedy there. He was ABC's lead correspondent on the Asian Tsunami, reporting from Banda Aceh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Woodruff has covered the entire so-called "axis of evil," the nuclear showdown in Iran, and in June 2005 he got unprecedented access to the secretive country of North Korea.

In the last presidential election he reported on the campaign of Senator John Edwards. He has also reported extensively on the continuing unrest in Iraq from Baghdad, Najaf, Nassariya and Basra. During the initial invasion, Woodruff reported from the front lines as an embedded journalist with the First Marine Division, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion.

Before moving to New York in 2002, Woodruff worked out of ABC News' London Bureau. After the September 11 attacks, he was among the first Western reporters into Pakistan and was one of ABC's lead foreign correspondents during the war in Afghanistan, reporting from Kabul and Kandahar on the fall of the Taliban. His overseas reporting of the fallout from September 11 was part of ABC News' coverage recognized with the Alfred I. duPont Award and the George Foster Peabody Award, the two highest honors in broadcast journalism. He was also a part of the ABC News team recognized with an Alfred I. duPont award for live coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

Before becoming a journalist, Woodruff was an attorney. But in 1989, while teaching law in Beijing, he was hired by CBS News to work as a translator during the Tiananmen Square uprising, and a short time later he changed careers. As ABC's Justice Department correspondent in Washington in the late 1990's, Woodruff covered the office of Attorney General Janet Reno, the FBI and ATF. In 1999 he reported from Belgrade and Kosovo during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Since then he has reported extensively on Europe and the Middle East.

Prior to joining ABC News, Woodruff was a reporter for KCPM-TV, the NBC affiliate in Redding, California, from 1991-92; for the CBS affiliate WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia from 1992-94; and for KNXV-TV, the ABC affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona from 1994-96. He joined ABC News in 1996, based in the network's Chicago bureau.

In February 2007, Woodruff and his wife Lee co-wrote a memoirIn An Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing, chronicling his injuries in Iraq and how their family persevered through a time of intense trauma and uncertainty. The Woodruff family also established the Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury (BWFF) to raise money to assist members of the military with cognitive rehabilitation and care following a traumatic brain injury suffered in service to their country. Woodruff has a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a BA from Colgate University. He and his wife Lee have four children.

About Lee Woodruff

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As co-author of the best-selling In An Instant: A Family's Journey of Love and Healing, Lee Woodruff garnered critical acclaim for the compelling and humorous chronicle of her family’s journey to recovery following her husband Bob’s roadside bomb injury in Iraq. Appearing together on national television and radio since the February 2007 publication of their book, the couple has helped put a face on the serious issue of traumatic brain injury among returning Iraq war veterans.

In the fall of 2007, Woodruff will join ABC’s Good Morning America as a contributing editor on a variety of home and family related topics.  She is currently working on a second book.

A freelance writer, Woodruff has penned numerous personal articles about her family and parenting that have run in such high-profile magazines as Health, Redbook, Country Living, and Family Fun. She also works as a contributing editor of Family Fun, where she writes about health and travel, and has served as a spokesperson for the publication, participating in national and regional broadcasts to discuss various topics on its behalf.

In addition to freelance writing, Woodruff ran her own public relations and marketing consulting business for 16 years.  Before that, she was senior vice president of public relations firm Porter Novelli, and spent a year in Beijing, China, working for communications company Hill & Knowlton, counseling clients as varied as GE, Chrysler/Jeep, Bausch & Lomb, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. In the latter position, she helped international clients break into markets in the People’s Republic of China.

At present, Woodruff lives in Westchester County, New York, with her husband. They have four children.