Dominique van Heerden and Stuart Ramsay were part of a Sky News team traveling back to Kyiv when their car was ambushed, reporters told Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media correspondent, on Sunday. Ramsay was injured when bullets pierced their vehicle and van Heerden was with him trying to get help.
The team made what would normally be a 30-minute drive to a Ukrainian checkpoint in a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, but eventually turned back for safety reasons.
“We felt that somehow the intensity of the fighting increased,” said van Heerden. “We started to feel a little uncomfortable and made the decision.”
Ramsay noted that the battlefield is ever-changing – roads that were safe one day may not be safe the next. The team was surrounded by fighting on three sides – the path they chose “didn’t look good” but it was their only option.
Then the shooting intensified.
“It felt like sitting in a washing machine with bullets,” said van Heerden. “Of course the car didn’t turn, but the bullets were everywhere.”
The journalists tried to take cover in the car, but the bullets penetrated the vehicle.
“I was absolutely certain that I was going to die,” Ramsay said. “I didn’t think it was possible that the number of laps that went into this car would continue to miss.”
Ramsay had previously been shot in cars. But he said that was different – the bullets “shattered the car piece by piece”.
Ramsay was eventually hit and said he fell 20 to 30 feet on his head and likely suffered a concussion. There was an entry wound at the top of his leg and the bullet exited through his lower back.
“It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but I’m sure it’s the adrenaline of course,” Ramsay said.
Van Heerden said Ramsay has shown no signs of slowing down.
“Stewart was remarkably calm, remarkably cohesive,” said van Heerden. “Considering he was just shot and considering we all just had this horrific experience.”
The journalists found cover and were stuck in the garage for up to four hours while fighting raged outside.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Ramsay said. “And no idea if anyone will even be able to save us, and if we’re actually on the front lines now.”
Van Heerden spent the worst time in the garage.
“We were very much on the run and it felt totally out of our hands,” said van Heerden. “We just got through the first round. Will we make it through the second round?”
Their extraction felt “wonderful,” Ramsay said as they heard the sounds of Ukrainian police coming up the building’s stairs.
“The reason we always showed this story was because it happens to ordinary people all the time,” Ramsay said. “The attack on us is nothing out of the ordinary.”
The Sky News team was lucky – they made it. Veteran cameraman and Ukrainian journalist Pierre Zakrzewski was killed in March while reporting for Fox News. And coping with that loss is the hardest part of recovery for van Heerden.
“For the first week or so it was the joy of being alive,” said van Heerden. “But when you then hear that your colleagues have been killed, you realize how lucky we were. And then you just wonder why.”
Ramsay, who was good friends with Zakrzewski, could not answer.
“I’m sorry. I can’t go there,” an emotional Ramsay told Stelter. “We’re sorry.”