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Saunders: A hard road to recovery

Published May 29, 2007 at midnight

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"At one point, her pulse stopped. . . . She didn't have a heartbeat.

"She is so badly injured . . . the fact she was alive, of course, is a miracle."

That was the report given by a U.S. Army doctor last May 30 regarding the condition of CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier.

On May 29 - exactly a year ago - the 39-year-old Dozier was a victim of a roadside bomb attack in a "relatively safe" Baghdad neighborhood, an attack that killed cameraman Paul Douglas, 48, and sound man James Brolan, 42, along with several members of the Army's 4th Infantry Division and Iraqi citizens.

Now, after 25 surgeries and countless hours of painful rehabilitation, Dozier's horrific story is told during an hourlong CBS documentary.

"For the first six, seven months, whenever I'd wake up it would all come back," Dozier recalls.

"Why I was there, . . . the people I'd lost, . . . the people we all had lost that day."

Her extensive injuries included shredded legs, severe body burns, head injuries caused by shrapnel and a blown-out eardrum,

In talking about her painful rehabilitation, Dozier says: "I had to learn to walk again. It was devastating and depressing.

"Then I would look down the hall and see guys who had lost their limbs. And I'd think, 'I can deal with this.' "

The Dozier survival story, narrated by Katie Couric, is given additional impact because the single sponsor will cut back on commercial breaks.

Flashpoint: Kimberly Dozier and the Army's 4th ID

• 9 p.m. today on CBS 4

Ratings roulette

A year ago, the CBS Evening News, anchored by Bob Schieffer, was a solid No. 2 in Denver-area audience ratings. The 5:30 p.m. weekday half- hour had an 11.8 audience share on CBS 4, slightly behind the NBC Nightly News on 9News, which registered a 12.2 share.

But the May sweeps have shown that Denver is no different from most of the other major TV markets. The change from Schieffer to Katie Couric has resulted in a drop in audience ratings.

CBS 4 showed a 9.5 share during May, while NBC, with Brian Williams, increased its audience lead to 14.2.

ABC World News with Charles Gibson, the current national leader, was third with an 8.9 share, up slightly from the 8.1 of a year ago before Gibson took over.

Gibson's third-place finish can be traced to the fact that Denver's 7's hourlong local newscast at 4 p.m. and 30- minute newscast at 5 p.m. are third in ratings.

Then there's Alex Trebek, who probably could have competed well against Walter Cronkite. Jeopardy! won the 6 p.m. time period for Denver's 7 against local news on 9News and CBS 4.

The figures for 6 p.m.: Jeopardy!, 12.7 share; 9News, 12.6; CBS 4, 7.8.

A share is a percentage of the more than 1.4 million TV homes in the Denver area watching TV and tuned to a particular program.

More nuts:

I noted last week that dedicated fans of Jericho, the serial drama canceled by CBS, had started a "Nuts to CBS" campaign by delivering more than 1,000 pounds of peanuts to the network's New York headquarters. The nutty barrage continues, with estimates now ranging from 3,000 pounds to "several tons."

Today's nostalgia:

On May 29, 1983, children's TV programming went worldwide as NBC aired Big Bird in China, a variety special filmed on location in various parts of the country.

House calls

The best weekly drama on television? Fox's House will get a lot of legitimate viewer support.

And while I'm a bit weary of gurneys and gowns and hospital dramas, the performance of Hugh Laurie as the irascible Gregory House brightens the screen on a regular basis.

Last week I mentioned that all major network series were in reruns after the May sweeps. Fortunately for House fans, I erred.

The series finale will air today (8 p.m. on Fox31), continuing the tense story line about Dr. Eric Foreman (Omar Epps) leaving the hospital - and the series.