Lara Logan Reveals PTSD a Year After Sexual Assualt in Egypt
CBS correspondent Lara Logan has said that she continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after she was sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo, Egypt.
Lara Logan revealed to The Daily News that the memories of the February 2011 attack still haunt her and cause her stress. She said that the memories even come at vulnerable moments when she's putting her young daughter to bed.
"When I'm lying there, waiting for my daughter to go to sleep, I have time to think about things. Those can be dark moments," Logan recalled. "You ranger through, you have to. You're aware of how much you have and it's so much more than what you've lost. You have a responsibility. Life is not about dwelling on the bad."
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Although Logan is busy at work, developing almost ten stories for "60 Minutes" and a new show, she says the PTSD doesn't go away.
"People don't really know that much about [post-traumatic stress disorder]. There's something called latent PTSD. It manifests itself in different ways," Logan told the Daily News. "I want to be free of it, it doesn't go away."
Logan added that she doesn't attempt to keep track of her PTSD, but it is unpredictable and happens more than she likes.
Her brutal 2011 attack came when she was covering Egyptian uprisings in Cairo, after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak fell from power. She was surrounded by a mob of angry men who attacked her and stripped her. She was separated from her CBS crew and suffered a brutal beating and sexual assault.
Recounting the horrifying experience, Logan said that, although she was being beaten with flagpoles and sticks, all she could feel was the sexual assault.
"The sexual assault was all I could feel, their hands raping me over and over and over again," Logan said.
She told "60 Minutes" last year that the assault went on for an excruciating 25 minutes, and that she thought she would die a "torturous death." Finally, she was saved by a group of women who formed a human shield around her until soldiers pulled her to safety.
Logan spent four days recovering in an Egyptian hospital, before being returned to her Washington D.C. home to continue recuperating. She said that her family, especially her husband, U.S. government defense contractor Joe Burkett, has been her greatest source of comfort.
