Lara Logan Breaks Silence About Egypt Sexual Assault

1:02 PM PDT 4/28/2011 by Marisa Guthrie

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The CBS News chief foreign correspondent recounts her horrific ordeal in a "60 Minutes" interview.

CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan recounts the savage sexual assault and beating she sustained in Egypt's Tahrir Square on Sunday's 60 Minutes.

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•Egypt Conflict

Conducted by Scott Pelley, it is Logan's first interview since the ordeal two months ago. Logan, who was in Egypt on assignment for 60 Minutes, has not been seen on CBS News since except in the pre-taped 60 Minutes open the Sunday after CBS News made the attack public.

Logan returned to work at CBS News Wednesday.

In the interview, she says thoughts of her two young children sustained her through the attack. When she saw her children for the first time after returning from Egypt, she says, "I felt like I had been given a second chance that I didn't deserve...because I did that to them. I came so close to leaving them, to abandoning them."

STORY: CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan Sexually Assaulted During Egypt Protests

With Logan in Tahrir Square that night were producer Max McClellan and cameraman Richard Butler as well as an interpreter and one bodyguard, a former member of Britain's special services.

"There was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying."

Logan reported without incident for nearly an hour. When their interpreter overheard troubling words in the crowd he advised them to leave. But before they could find a way out of the square, Logan was surrounded by "several hundred men," according to the CBS News release.

She was out of touch with her team for about 25 minutes. "There was no doubt in my mind that I was in the process of dying," she tells Pelley. "I thought not only am I going to die, but it's going to be just a torturous death that's going to go on forever..."

She was rescued by a group of Egyptian women and soldiers. The soldiers returned Logan and her team to their hotel, where a doctor examined her. The next day she flew back to the United States where she was treated for four days.

Logan was among several journalists targeted in Egypt. CNN's Anderson Cooper, ABC's Christiane Amanpour and Fox News Channel's Greg Palkot and Olaf Wiig were among Western journalists subject to either outright physical assault or intimidation during the uprisings that swept long-time president Hosni Mubarak from power last February.