Just a few weeks before returning to work, BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardner has spoken to Fiona Bruce about the day that changed his life forever.
In the interview Frank said: “Not a single day goes by that I do not wish we had not gone.”
In June 2004, Frank was sent to Saudi Arabia to report on the war on terror. Unfortunately, he ended up experiencing it first-hand when he and his camera man Simon Cumbers were attacked by gunmen.
Simon was killed whilst Frank was left for dead, but managed to survive six gun shots.
Frank described Saudi Arabia as a ‘fascinating place to visit’. On 6 June 2004, Frank and Simon received information that they could film in the capital, Riyadh, where Frank said they were doing a walking piece where he was filmed on camera.
Frank said: “When we got there, it looked incredibly peaceful.”
Talking about how his wife felt about his trip away from home, Frank told Fiona: “Like most journalists, my wife was particularly unhappy about every trip I did.”
Simon Cumbers, a great friend of many within the BBC, lost his life in the targeted execution. Frank described Simon as a ‘fantastic human being’ and a ‘superb journalist’.
20,000 British expats currently live in Saudi Arabia and it is one of the most devout and insular countries in the Middle East.
Frank described the moment where he saw the gun man reaching into his pocket.
“Long before he pulled it out (the gun) I knew where the story ended and I shouted in Arabic ‘no please don’t do this.”
After being shot at, Frank pleaded for his life in Arabic. He admitted he told them he was a Muslim.
Frank said: “I told them I was a Muslim but they did not believe me. They wanted to kill me.”
Frank was shot six times in Al Suweidi in the south of the capital, and the traumatic experience still sticks in his mind.
Frank said: “I thought, this is weird, I should be dead, I was very surprised to find I was still alive.”
Of the men who ambushed him, Frank said: “They left me for dead. They wanted to kill me, it was a targeted execution.
“I saw them as close as I am to you. My able bodied life is gone and these people have done this to me and I have done nothing to them.
“What kind of a person could do this in cold blood.”
Frank was in agony when the police eventually turned up and bundled him into the back of a car. There were no ambulances.
Frank said: “I remember hanging out of the window. I was amazed that I didn’t black out.”
Frank was given an emergency operation in King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre carried out by the Trauma surgeon, Dr Peter Bautz.
After about 8 days he started to come around, Frank told of how the first thing he saw was his wife.
He told Fiona of what happened to Simon: “All I know of what happened to Simon was that he ran away but they caught up with him in a car and gunned him down.”
Frank now has to come to terms with life in a wheelchair, which isn’t easy for anybody.
Frank said: “I only really accepted or understood that I am going to be wheelchair-bound in the last couple of months or so.
“It’s as if my legs don’t belong to me.
“It wasn’t until about 6 months in that I realised just how difficult walking again is going to be.
“I have got lifeless lower legs. The prognosis is that they probably won’t come back.”
Frank told how they didn’t get to his head, but he was ‘physically changed’.
He will soon return to work as a security correspondent for the BBC.
Regis