'Post' reporter Erik Schechter wounded in bus bombing

Jerusalem Post ^ | Jan. 30, 2004 | SAM SER

[yonif]

Jerusalem Post military correspondent Erik Schechter suffered moderate wounds in Thursday morning's suicide bombing, having boarded the No. 19 bus just moments before the explosion.

In Schechter's case, "moderate" wounds are a broken left knee and a severed vein in the calf below it; puncture wounds in his right leg and back, from slices of metal packed into the explosives; a broken shoulder suffered on impact when the blast threw him from one part of the bus to another; lungs and spleen contused by the force of the explosion; and singed eyebrows from the blistering heat.

After patching together his severed vein, inserting a metal screw to hold his knee together, removing the shrapnel, and stabilizing him, Schechter's doctors at Shaare Zedek Hospital said that he "got off easy" relative to so many of the other victims of the attack.

He is lucky, they told his parents – and they didn't even know the half of it.

Like so many Israelis, Schechter's list of "near misses" was growing long.

In November, he had just arrived at his Istanbul hotel when the first of two terror bombings ripped through the street just outside his window. He was lucky again when, crossing the Turkish border with northern Iraq only days afterward, his jokes encouraged the Iraqi guards not to harm him despite his Israeli passport.

On several occasions during his service as a tank driver in 2002, Schechter watched Hizbullah spotters train their sights on his tank, positioned along the Lebanese border.

Home on leave in March of the same year, he changed at the last minute his plans to stop by the Moment Cafe, just before the devastating bombing there. Schechter met briefly with family and friends after several hours of surgery on Thursday – and then sedatives carried him off to sleep. Doctors say he'll be running around again in six months.

[yonif]

Israel is such a small country, that whenever a terrorist attack occurs, there are always names that ring a bell to anyone living there.

[SevenofNine]

Whoa Yonif I am shock that reporter got hurt at this bombing

You know what i hearing that reporters everybody travel on bus in Israel


Get well soon

[dennisw]

He'll likely be limping the rest of his life.

[Grateful American]

How much is Israel expected to take of the incitement to hate in Arafar's blood-thristy, vicious kingdom ("Unlike the Israelis, who cherish life, we love death," report his leaders)? The statistically staggering losses among Israeli citizens is ignored in the terrorist supporting media. NPR, CNN, BCC, AP, Reuters stop and go out of their way to produce human suffering vignettes about terrorist families, but these media are silent on the human face and biographies of innocent Israeli victims. This media bias, of course, encourages more violence by terrorists.

[japaneseghost]

that #19 again.

[nuconvert]

Great job covering this terrible story.