“I’ve got one leg, I’ve got no feet, I see through one eye, one workable hand. I was burned all over, and I feel strong, I feel more confident than I ever have,” Benjamin Hall told Fox & Friends Thursday. Hall was injured in March of last year as he was covering the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Hall was wounded when his vehicle was struck by incoming fire in Horenka, outside Kyiv. Two others traveling with him, Fox News photojournalist Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, were killed. 

“I think that when you’ve gone through something like I’ve gone through, the highs, the lows, you have to have a target, you have to get something to fight for. And this is it, trying to get back, trying to speak to you, trying to be on air and trying to tell people the stories, so perhaps it can help them,” he continued. Hall said he learned a lot from his experience and that he was surrounded by many wonderful people. “[T]hat’s why I’m here today, and I look forward to everything that comes ahead.”

His Vision

“If I had the slightest iota of consciousness, it was a distant sense of shock waves and the feeling that every part of my body — bones, organs, sinew, my soul — had been knocked out of me. I was all but dead but improbably, out of this crippling nothingness, a figure came through, and I heard a familiar voice, as real as anything I’d ever known. ‘Daddy, you’ve got to get out of the car.’” His vision of his three little girls gave him the push to get out of the car. “I opened my eyes and managed to crawl out of the car,” he said. “If it weren’t for them bringing me back, there is no way I would be here today.”

Hall wrote a memoir on the event that will be released March 14, 2023. He read an excerpt of the book on air.

‘Never Give Up’

Ainsley Earhardt on Fox & Friends asked Hall how he has remained so positive during the ordeal.

“I think it’s really important when you’re feeling low — there were many times when I was really at the bottom. You have to know there is good on the other side,” Hall explained. “If you work hard, if you dedicate yourself to getting somewhere, you don’t stop trying to achieve that — you will get there no matter how painful something is, no matter how hard it is, if you really want to and you have the support to do it, you can get there. Never give up.”

Prayer Was a Comfort

Hall also said that thousands of Fox News viewers, who told him they were praying and thinking of him, helped him. 

“When people reach out and tell you they’re thinking about you, they’re praying for you, that gives you support as well, so for anyone else who is going through really difficult things, keep going. Never give up. It’s inside you, and it’s always good on the other side.”

Tell the Stories From War

Hall received the 2022 Foreign Press Award from The Association of Foreign Press Correspondents at the Roosevelt House in New York. He gave his acceptance speech remotely. “I do think that this is not just an award for myself. It is an award for Pierre and for Sasha, who both died during that attack, and also for every other war correspondent who has been injured or killed covering conflicts.

“And despite the attack, despite what happened to us, I think it is essential that people continue telling the news, telling the stories from war. I think that’s the only way we truly get to understand the atrocities, the disasters and the horror that’s happening out there.”

Nancy Flory, Ph.D., is a senior editor at The Stream. You can follow her @NancyFlory3, and follow The Stream @Streamdotorg.