Fox News’ Hall: Love and family ‘saved me’
The thing about days that change your life is they can start out just like any other.
In a car heading back to Kyiv from Horenka two years ago Thursday, Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall silently congratulated himself on the reporting he and his two colleagues had done covering Ukraine’s defense against Russian military advances.
“I think, what a great job,” he says in an interview. “What a great day.”
Hall and his colleagues − cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova − who were being driven by soldiers, approached an abandoned checkpoint. Then a familiar whistling sound pierced the air and a missile landed about 30 feet in front of the vehicle.
“And immediately, as soon as it landed, there was an attempt to reverse the car,” Hall says. ‘We’ve got to go back! Go back! Go back!’ ”
But seconds later, Hall says another missile hit alongside the car, sending him to “this other place,” shrouded in darkness and silence. And then a vision of his eldest daughter, Honor, emerged, telling him: “Daddy, you’ve got to get out of the car. You’ve got to get out of the car.”
“I got one foot out the door, and then the third (missile) hit the car itself,” Hall says. When he regained consciousness, he realized he was on fire. “I was rolling around on the floor and trying to put the flames out.”
Hall was the only one in the vehicle to survive.
He recalls his right leg “hanging on by the skin.” His left foot had a “baseball-sized hole right through it.” His skull was fractured, and his left eye was sliced in half. Much of his left hand was decimated.
But in that moment, Hall says, death never crossed his mind. “I just knew that I was going to go home,” he says. “I was going to figure out a way of going home.”
Hall’s wife, Alicia, awaited his return in London. They had gone to the American equivalent of elementary school together and reconnected in their 20s in 2011, he writes in his new book, “Saved: A War Reporter’s Mission to Make it Home.” At 6, he had received a card from a smitten classmate with the inscription “Benji, I love you, Alicia.” They were married in 2015 and have three daughters: Honor, Iris and Hero.
“It was love and my family that saved me and (give) me that strength today,” Hall says. “But it added on so much more, a different level of love afterwards.”
Hall believes he waited about 40 minutes before being transported by Ukrainian special forces to a hospital in Kyiv. He was taken by a Polish government train out of Ukraine and eventually landed at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. His recovery had been expected to take two years, but with his sights set on
reuniting with his family, he was able to leave the medical center after five months.
“It was the goal when I was lying on the ground in Ukraine, and it was the goal every day I was in hospital,” Hall says. “If you’re going through something difficult, give (yourself) something to work towards.”
Hall’s injuries still plague him today. His right leg was amputated below the knee. He says that he’s in pain with every step and that he might lose his left foot. Though he can walk for 30 to 40 minutes at a time before needing to rest, it’s a far cry from going on hikes with his children. But he tries not to dwell on those challenges; he feels lucky to be alive.
“If life is an adventure and if life is about learning things and about growing, well, then (the attack has) done that to me,” Hall says. Then he brings up the death of his colleagues, Zakrzewski and Kuvshynova.
“There is no positive that came out of that,” Hall says. “That’s terrible, and we must remember them every day and we must try our best to do things better every day for them.”
Hall, 41, is back at the job that makes him feel alive. He returned to Ukraine last November, where he interviewed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As part of his journey, he took the same train that once helped save his life. Hall lay in the cabin, as he had done before in agonizing pain.
“I don’t want to forget it. It’s part of me,” he says. “Frankly, it was a great experience. It helped me, and when I got off at the other end, I just felt I’d done it. When I got to Kyiv, I thought: ‘They tried to stop us. They tried to silence us, and they haven’t done it. They can throw whatever they like at us, and I’m back, and I’m going to report.’ And that’s what we do.”
Work has also recently taken Hall from his base in London to Israel and September’s Invictus Games in Düsseldorf, Germany. Hall says he does most of his work in the morning, when he feels his best. Ahead of busy days, he’ll avoid too much walking so he’s prepared.
Over the winter, Hall launched a podcast, “Searching for Heroes With Benjamin Hall,” that celebrates the persistence of everyday people.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize the resilience that they have inside them, and it only comes out when they’re up against a wall, when they need it,” he says. “You’ve got it inside you. It’s there. Just go and find it.”