A reporter for Sky News covering the war in Iraq narrowly escaped death when a roadside bomb exploded just a few feet away from the van he was in.
The entire situation was caught on camera, and footage of the explosion was also released on social media by the Islamic State. The overhead shot revealed just how massive the detonation was and how close the reporter came to losing his life.
Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsay escapes unharmed after an IED explosion in Mosul, Iraq. (Fox News/YouTube)
Sky News’ Stuart Ramsay was covering the war in a combat-torn area in Mosul, Iraq, when the soldiers he was with suddenly started running for cover.
“Dozens of soldiers who had filled the streets were running in every direction. People screamed at me to take cover and run away,” Ramsay said, according to Sky News.
Amid the confusion, Ramsay and his crew decide to take cover in a van.
“I didn’t know what was happening but as my cameraman, Nathan Hale, stopped filming inside and came towards me I pushed him back into the truck and told him to wait,” Ramsay continued.
Check out the video of the entire ordeal below:
“A soldier jumped into the van beside me and there was silence; then a crash. Then nothing,” Ramsay said.
“An orange flash, an enormous boom and our heavy truck lifted off the ground,” he added. “The three-inch plate glass front windshield exploded and acrid smoke filled the truck.”
Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsay escapes unharmed after an IED explosion in Mosul, Iraq. (Fox News/YouTube)
The explosion that Ramsay encountered was a roadside IED, or improvised explosive device. Immediately following the bomb explosion, gunfire could be heard from every direction, and Ramsay and his film crew ran for cover.
“The fighting intensified and twice we moved locations to try to put distance between us and the fight raging outside – but it kept getting nearer,” Ramsay said. “We decided we needed to find something safer so frantically we clambered over mounds of broken concrete to the lower floor of a wrecked government building and hid inside.”
Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsay escapes unharmed after an IED explosion in Mosul, Iraq. (Fox News/YouTube)
Ultimately, Ramsay escaped the frightening ordeal, and he considers himself extremely lucky to have made it out of the situation alive.
“I felt my arms and legs. They were all there. I wasn’t hurt at all. None of us could believe it,” he added.
