Benjamin Hall recalls moments after Russian attack
Fox News foreign correspondent Benjamin Hall joins 'Hannity' for his first in-person interview since he sustained horrific injuries while covering the war in Ukraine one year ago.
Fox News foreign correspondent Benjamin Hall revisited his dramatic survival as he and his crew were hit by a missile attack while covering the Russia's invasion of Ukraine one year ago.
Ahead of the March 14 release of his memoir "Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home," Hall sat down with Fox News' Sean Hannity Thursday in an exclusive interview on "Hannity" and offered a harrowing account of the missile attack striking his crew's vehicle, which left him severely wounded and killed beloved Fox News photojournalist Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra "Sasha" Kuvshynova.
"We slowed down at an abandoned checkpoint and out of nowhere the first missile came out of nowhere, lands about 30 feet in front of us. Immediately Pierre shouts, 'Reverse the car! Reverse the car!'" Hall told Hannity. "There were two Ukrainians driving as well, and five of us in the car. The car got stuck. We couldn't go back and Pierre shouted, ‘Get out of the car! Everyone get out of the car!’ And the next second, the second bomb hits right in front of the left of the car. And that one, I went black."
"I was in a dark place. I couldn't feel or see. I'd taken shrapnel in the eye and the matchbox-sized shrapnel in my neck. And I was- I was out. I was out dead," Hall continued.
FOX NEWS TO AIR DOCUMENTARY ON BENJAMIN HALL'S REMARKABLE JOURNEY AFTER DEADLY UKRAINE ATTACK
Fox News will air a special documentary, "Sacrifice and Survival: A Story From the Front Line," which tells the remarkable story of foreign correspondent Benjamin Hall. (Fox News)
Hall then told Hannity how he heard the voice of his 7-year-old daughter Honor, who was urging him to get out of the car.
"And then I saw my daughter out of nowhere into this blackness. Right in front of me came my daughter, Honor. And she said to me, 'Daddy, you've got to get out of the car.' Real as if she was in front of me. Out of nowhere she came to me," Hall said. "And I came to, and I opened up my eyes and my instinct took me towards the car door. And I scrambled. I pulled myself out, and I got out of the car. And the third bomb hit the car itself right after that."
The next thing he knew, he said, he was thrown from the blast and "on fire," quickly noticing his right leg was gone but not realizing at the time that his left foot was gone as well. His left hand was "all torn up," put back together later by doctors.
"I was lying there, lying there. And Pierre was still alive at this point. And Pierre immediately said, 'Don't move! Russian drones, Russian drones.' So I'm lying there in this barren landscape, trying not to move, trying to think of what we can do," Hall said.
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His initial instinct was to pull out his cell phone, which he noted had no reception, and record what he was seeing, and he began taking photos of his injuries.
"I immediately thought, 'Well, my children can't see this. If I don't come home, that can't be the last picture that perhaps they see.' So still sitting there, I deleted them immediately," Hall told Hannity. "But we lay there for a while longer. And Pierre again, who was lying about 5 feet away from me or so, just lying there. He said, ‘The Russians, the Russians.’"
Hall recalled trying to wave down a passing car, which did not stop. Zakrzewski insisted it was the Russians.
"And I said it doesn't matter. I'm so badly injured. I've got to go," Hall told Hannity.
"Saved: A War Reporters’ Mission To Make It Home" hits retailers on March 14 and is available for preorder. (HarperCollins Publishers)
In addition to Hannity's interview, Fox News will air a special documentary on March 19, "Sacrifice and Survival: A Story From the Front Line," which tells Hall's remarkable story.
"Sacrifice and Survival: A Story From the Front Line" will feature, for the first time, the details of Hall’s harrowing extraction from Ukraine and the difficult recovery that followed.
BENJAMIN HALL SURPRISES FOX NEWS COLLEAGUES WITH MOVING WORDS SIX MONTHS AFTER DEADLY UKRAINE ATTACK
Hall was located and evacuated out of Ukraine to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center within 48 hours of the attack with the help of the nonprofit organization Save Our Allies and the Department of Defense, including Secretary Lloyd Austin and then-Pentagon press secretary John Kirby, along with Fox News executives and chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin.
State Department Correspondent Benjamin Hall at the Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas gets a Happy Birthday from FOX News ahead of his 40th. (FOX News)
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Hall was eventually transferred to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, where he spent six months with doctors rebuilding his body before returning home to his family in London last August.
Since the attack, Hall has been through roughly 30 surgeries, lost a leg on one side and a foot on the other, and also no longer has function of a hand and one eye.
"You know, I look at my injuries and I don't worry about them one bit, because I'm here with my family," Hall recently told PEOPLE in a touching feature.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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