THE ITV News journalist – Scot, Martin Geissler – cheated death by just ten seconds while covering last year’s conflct in Libya – according to a report today in The Scottish Sun.
In a two-page spread, the former STV journalist – “who has been beaten up, shot at and witnessed appalling scenes of devastation while covering some of the world’s biggest stories” – is quoted as saying: “I was on my hotel balcony doing a live piece for NBC in the States when suddenly this proper, full-on gun battle erupted right below me.
“There were guys with anti-aircraft guns bolted to the back of pick-up trucks haring up and down the street just letting loose.
“These panicking, inexperienced people, who were armed to the teeth, started making a real racket. NBC kept me on the phone because it sounded quite dramatic, so I was crouching down describing what was happening.
“Eventually, I told NBC, ‘I’m going to have to get inside. It’s getting unsafe out here.’
“Just as I walked in, I heard a crack behind me and as I looked round, a bullet had embedded itself in the balcony wall where I had been standing only ten seconds before.”
The spread also features fellow Scot, Allan Little, who has reported from Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Libya, for the BBC.
In Bosnia, in 1992, he narrowly escaped death in an incident that claimed the life of his cameraperson. He reckons he has lost eight friends to wars over the last two decades.
The Scottish Sun spread also features Scot, Sarah Smith, who was Channel 4’s Washington correspondent until summer when she was then appointed the channel’s business correspondent.
