Editor’s Note: Kimberly Dozier has been a CBS News correspondent since 2003. A Wellesley graduate, she started her career at CBS radio in Cairo in 1992. She moved to Israel, where she has had a home outside Jerusalem since 2003. Her new book, Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Report and Survive the War in Iraq, is about her surviving — and what it took to recover from — a car-bomb attack while she was on assignment in Iraq. She and her CBS News camera crew, Paul Douglas and James Brolan (both of whom were killed in the attack), were following a Fourth Infantry Division patrol around the Karrada area of Baghdad — touring streets that were about to be handed over to Iraqi security forces.

LESLEY: I’m here with Kimberly Dozier, my CBS News colleague who was hit by a car bomb in Iraq, and surely would have died if not for the heroic efforts of her military escorts and army medics. Before we begin, let me say up front that Kimberly is my friend, that when I read her book about her ordeal, Breathing the Fire, I was so impressed, I wrote a blurb recommending it. So – I am a fan. And now you all know where I’m coming from!

So, let’s begin. Kimberly, by all accounts, you should not have survived the explosion. You should not have survived the multiple operations … and the pain. Tell us how and why you think you were able to pull through.

KIMBERLY: The guys at the scene didn’t think I would pull through. Staff Sgt. Jeremy Koch (I heard his voice, didn’t ever see his face) ran into the bomb scene when his unit heard the explosion, and he saw me, with my broken legs all askew, riddled with shrapnel from head to toe. He started talking to me calmly and putting tourniquets on me — essentially, treating me as one of his own. He later said he didn’t think I’d make it, but he wasn’t going to let me die alone.

Why’d I make it? Paul Douglas, our cameraman, had similar injuries — though even worse to his legs — but he bled out at the scene. Our fourth ID medic had put tourniquets on him right away. And I know he fought to stay alive — I heard from the troops who stayed with him. I’ve read a few things about trauma research since in which scientists have found estrogen helps test animals survive despite severe blood loss. Was that it in my case? I survived because of my hormones? They say someday medics may carry vials of estrogen in the battlefield — and maybe save lives.

Click here to see Kimberly’s photos of her experience. 

LESLEY: Estrogen? Saving your life? Who knew! Tell us more.

KIMBERLY: I heard a report on Public Radio International, and had to follow it up. Scientists at Chapel Hill, NC, are trying to figure out how to keep patients alive longer, despite massive blood loss. (I’d lost more than half my blood, so that was me.) They kept four test animals alive twice as long as they should have been able to, with only half their blood, by giving them continuous doses of estrogen.Who knew the hormones that plague us could also save our lives? It’ll take years of more testing before they field something like that though.

LESLEY: Well, there’s a headline! Peggy Noonan told me she thought your book was the best she’d ever read explaining what it’s like to be blown up, and then go through the suffering of skin grafts and all the other procedures. I kept saying, as I read the book, that I would not have been able to go through the pain. You also had to be your own protector against questionable medical advice. I marvel at how you did it. It sounded as though you were able to escape Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.