
"Resolute": Benjamin Hall on embracing the challenge of recovery
On March 14, 2022, Fox News correspondent Benjamin Ball and his crew, who were covering the war in Ukraine, traveled to the frontline town of Horenka with two Ukrainian soldiers, when their car was struck by Russian missiles.
"I reached for the door of the car, and I managed to get one foot out of the door," Hall said. "And then the third bomb hit the car itself. And I was out for, I'm not sure how long, but I woke up and I must be about 15, 20 feet from the car. I was on fire.
"I started to sort of gather where I was and what had happened. I was confused because I had no trousers or shoes on. I didn't quite figure out that it had burnt off. And, you know, my right foot had been largely blown off. And I can still sense what it was like – all the worries had gone. There was, like, one sole thing: survival. There was one thing: Get home."
He flagged down a car that drove him to a Ukrainian hospital. "That was the last I remember," he said. "I think I was just barely, barely alive at that point."
I asked, "When did you realize the extent of your injuries?"
"You know, I didn't," Hall said. "For example, the left foot I didn't really realize. It was only later that I saw a picture that was taken in hospital, which it just has a baseball-sized hole right in the middle of it and totally gone. But I didn't notice that. The leg obviously took most of my attention. I didn't know how badly I was burned. I had shrapnel in the eye, cut the eye in half. I was unaware of that. You know, I was bleeding from the head, but didn't know how much of my skull had been taken out. Nor did I even know that the thumb had been pulled off. It is an incredible place that your body goes to. You are in this survival mode."
He was the only survivor. Longtime Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and local producer Sasha Kuvshynova were killed. With no space in the car, they'd decided to go without Fox's own security.
I asked, "You juggle a lot and adrenaline is pushing and you're up against deadlines. Were mistakes made?"
"No, I don't think so," Hall replied. "We have a routine that we follow. You know where you're going and talk about it as a team, and that's what we did that day. Look, Pierre and Sasha are dead. Do I want to reverse it? Do I want to go back? Would I bring them back for absolutely anything? Of course I would. That will be with me forever."
Hall documented the dramatic and tragic events in his book, "Saved," which details how Fox News helped get him on a train headed to the Polish border, where the U.S. military was waiting. "I was taken off that train at the other end, and there was this Blackhawk, 82nd Airborne. I felt I was absolutely saved."
The war correspondent, a dual U.K. and U.S. citizen, began chronicling his own battle. Hall's journey to recovery took him from Poland, to Germany, to Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, ever-further from his wife, Alicia Meller, and their three daughters in London.
When "Sunday Morning" met the family last year, they were getting ready to welcome a new baby, and adjusting to a changed reality.
I asked Alicia, "Were there times that you were preparing for the very worst with him?"
"The first night that I got the call, I actually thought he was probably going to die, to be honest," she replied. "I think when this kind of a thing happens, you do expect, like, worst-case scenario, and you could be prepared for death. But I was not prepared for this. I have no experience with amputees or amputations or just the amount of surgeries that, you know, are involved with someone who has a blast injury. I had no idea."
"Until you're challenged with something, I don't think you always understand what you're capable of," she said, turning to her husband. "So, I think maybe you surprised yourself with your capabilities."
He's undergone around 40 surgeries, and hundreds of hours of physical therapy, writing about that, too, in a new book about the power of resilience. "Resolute: How We Humans Keep Finding Ways to Beat the Toughest Odds" will be published March 18.
"You suddenly are open to doing anything," said Hall. "And if a doctor comes in and says, 'We're putting leeches on that, we're going to take the thumb off, we're going to put your elbow onto it,' bring it on! Whatever you've got to do to get me home, to get me walking, to get me back to my kids, I will do it and I won't complain about it."
He's embraced the challenge, even his new mismatched eye. "The only lens they had left was blue," he said. "And they said, 'We can go find you a brown one.' And I said, 'Give me the David Bowie look, I want it, you know?' So, I love the eyes. And you know what? They're a conversation starter. And I love that."
"Why do you want people to ask about the injuries?" I asked.
"You know, I don't think I had spent much time before the injuries thinking about what it was like to be disabled. So, I guess I want to do it to help others feel natural about it."
On his first day back in the London bureau, he told Fox viewers, "I'm a strong believer that, if something knocks you down, you go away and you deal with it and you keep coming back."
Reminders of the tragedy are ever-present; Fox dedicated its bureau to Zakrzewski after the deadly attack.
Sasha Kuvshynova's parents are suing Fox News, claiming wrongful death in their lawsuit.
I asked Hall, "They've named you, your book, as perpetuating a story that they believe is a false story of how close you were, whether you should have been that close."
"Look, I came home to my family, I came home to my children; they lost their daughter. But when it comes to my book, I sat down within a few days and I started jotting down what happened. I wanted people to read about what happened, because I wanted to talk about Pierre and about Sasha and the amazing work they did, and the war, what we were covering. And so, the idea that the book is false in any sense isn't true in any bit."
"How was it to have your memoir named in this lawsuit, the allegation being that HarperCollins is a subsidiary of the same parent company, that somehow Fox is getting its story out through you?"
"Surprised, I suppose," Hall said. "I certainly didn't see it coming."
The ordeal has reordered his priorities – and family is more important ever. Asked if he thinks he's fully processed what happened, Hall replied, "Yeah, I have. Processing it doesn't mean that it's gone. Pierre and Sasha died. I don't want to totally process that. I always want to have that drive me. So, I'm happy to hold those burdens, you know? I feel like they're part of me now."
"How do you think about conflict reporting today?"
"Oh, more important than ever," said Hall. "I loved my career. I loved what I was doing, and I would take these injuries as a result of that. I would change it all to bring Pierre and Sasha back in a heartbeat. But I think it's the most important job in our field, to be honest. I think it's essential."
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNN
44 minutes ago
- CNN
Harvard researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos is being released from federal custody
Animal storiesFacebookTweetLink Follow A judge released a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher charged with smuggling frog embryos into the United States on bail Thursday. Kseniia Petrova, 30, has been in federal custody since February. Petrova was returning from a vacation in France, where she had stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples for research. She was later questioned about the samples while passing through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint at Boston Logan International Airport. She told The Associated Press in an interview in April that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak anything into the country. After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled. Petrova was briefly detained by immigration officials in Vermont, where she filed a petition seeking her release. She was later sent to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana. The Department of Homeland Security had said in a statement on the social media platform X that Petrova was detained after 'lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country.' They allege that messages on her phone 'revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.' In May, Petrova was charged with smuggling in Massachusetts as a federal judge in Vermont set the hearing date on her petition. That judge later ruled that the immigration officers' actions were unlawful, that Petrova didn't present a danger, and that the embryos were nonliving, nonhazardous and 'posed a threat to no one.' The judge released Petrova from ICE custody, but she remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service on the smuggling charge. Colleagues and academics have testified on Petrova's behalf, saying she is doing valuable research to advance cures for cancer.


Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Russian Harvard Scientist Freed on Bail After Months in Custody
A Russian scientist at Harvard University was freed on bail by a federal judge after spending four months in detention for failing to declare biological material she brought into the US for research. After winning release Thursday, Kseniia Petrova is scheduled to reappear in court on June 18 for a hearing over whether the government will proceed with a criminal charge for smuggling, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Senator Alex Padilla Forcibly Removed and Handcuffed After Confronting Noem
Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, was forcibly removed from a news conference being held by Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, and handcuffed on Thursday after he pushed past guards at a federal building in West Los Angeles. 'Sir! Sir! Hands off!' Mr. Padilla, 52, shouted as federal agents tried to muscle him out of the room where Ms. Noem was speaking inside a government office building about 15 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. 'I am Senator Alex Padilla, I have a question for the secretary.' As Mr. Padilla — a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the son of Mexican immigrants and a Los Angeles native — began to question the authenticity of a bank of mug shots behind her, agents shoved him out of the room, told him to drop to his knees in a hallway and handcuffed him, based on videos taken by Mr. Padilla's office and a Fox News reporter. A small group of reporters pivoted their cameras toward the disruption. Other national and local journalists were forced to wait outside the building after officials blocked access to the news conference shortly before the event began. The secretary was at a podium thanking the U.S. Army, the Marines and the National Guard for providing 'security' when Mr. Padilla made his entrance. Mr. Padilla told reporters that he learned of Ms. Noem's news conference while he was waiting for a scheduled briefing down the hall. He said he has asked for answers about the administration's 'increasingly extreme' immigration actions and has not been able to get them. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.