Ambushed

the long version

"Ian Stewart has reported from some of the most dangerous places on earth, but none was more dangerous than West Africa's Sierra Leone. When armed rebels entered its besieged capital in 1999, Stewart and two of his Associated Press colleagues were ambushed while driving down the street on assignment. One of them was killed instantly, and Stewart was shot in the head. He had a 20 percent chance of surviving. Miraculously, he did. With frankness, Stewart tells the story of his own remarkable recovery as well as the extraordinary risks he and other journalists take to report the news from remote war-ravaged countries.". "Ambushed is a glimpse inside the often surreal world journalists inhabit as they bear witness to violence and give voice to the unspeakable. From a dusty parking lot in Sierra Leone, he struggles to find words for his report on a young girl kidnapped by rebels who chopped off her hands when she refused to tell them her family's whereabouts. In a dark hotel room in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he interviews senior commanders who orchestrated the massacre of some two thousand ethnic Hutu refugees. Though his stories are sometimes buried deep inside the daily papaers, or not published at all, Stewart keeps reporting. What finally stops him is a bullet. With the same determination and courage that served him well as a journalist, he overcomes a brain injury that could have been debilitating."--BOOK JACKET.