Wounded ‘Time’ Journalist

Is State Rep Wasserman’s Nephew

A Time magazine reporter suffered severe shrapnel wounds and lost his hand December 10 when he tried to throw away a grenade tossed into a Humvee he was riding in with a Time photographer and two US soldiers, colleagues said last Thursday. The Time senior correspondent, Michael Weisskopf, is the nephew of Newtown resident and state Representative Julia Wasserman.

Mr Weisskopf and contributing photographer James Nachtwey were traveling with a US Army patrol in Baghdad Wednesday night when the attack occurred, according to a statement from Time managing editor Jim Kelly.

The soldiers also were wounded, the US military said, but gave no further information.

Mrs Wasserman said this week her nephew had been planning to return from Iraq on December 20 to spend two days putting together Time magazine’s Person of the Year story, which he was assigned to write this year. “He had spent several months with the troops in the 4th Infantry Division. He went out on forays all the time with them,” Mrs Wasserman said. “He was living in tents with the soldiers, and going out with the group that ultimately captured Saddam Hussein.”

The state representative said that her nephew was riding in a Humvee with a photographer and two soldiers at the time of the attack. “An Iraqi –– and we know it was an Iraqi –– threw a grenade into the Humvee,” she said. “He picked it up immediately because he knew what it was, and tried to throw it out. The photographer [Mr Nachtwey] was injured by shrapnel. The soldiers only had minor wounds. They would all be dead if he didn’t act, no doubt about that.”

Time would not offer details on the incident. But a memo sent to Mr Weisskopf’s former colleagues at The Washington Post said he picked up the grenade and tossed it out of the Humvee. It exploded, blowing off his hand and wounding him in the chest and arms. The memo said Mr Nachtwey received shrapnel wounds that were not as serious.

“According to people he works with at Time, he picked up the grenade and tossed it out, losing his right hand in the process while saving four lives,” the memo said.

A military spokesman said they were with a unit of the Army’s 1st Armored Division.

The military official, who spoke only condition of anonymity, said one of the journalists was severely wounded and the other was slightly injured, but would not say which. Time said both were in stable condition and were awaiting transfer to a US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.

Mrs Wasserman said her nephew was flown to Germany on Saturday, and was brought back to the United States to the Walter Reed Hospital on Monday. She confirmed that he had lost his hand in the attack. “The doctors don’t know how much of his arm is at risk because of the dust and shrapnel,” she said.

The 57-year-old Mr Weisskopf is an award-winning correspondent based in Washington. He covers national politics and investigations and was a finalist in the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. He worked for The Washington Post for 20 years, set up its China office and speaks fluent Chinese. He moved to Time magazine in 1997.

Mr Nachtwey is an award-winning photographer known for haunting images of war and poverty. He was the subject of a 2001 Oscar-nominated documentary, War Photographer, and has won many awards. This year he shared a $1 million Dan David prize for documenting “the apocalyptic events of our time.”

The Paris-based World Association of Newspapers has said that at least 16 journalists have been killed in Iraq this year. Many others have been wounded.

In the last known incident, police said the editor of an independent newspaper in the northern city of Mosul was shot and killed on October 28.

(This story includes the reporting of Associated Press writers Niko Price in Baghdad and Nick Wadhams in New York.)