Fox News host, family survive car crash in Montana

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) - Fox News host Bret Baier and his family survived a motor vehicle crash in Montana after the television anchor's SUV slid on an icy road, collided with a pickup truck and turned over in a ditch, authorities said Tuesday.

Baier, the executive editor of Fox News Channel's "Special Report," said that after a weekend of skiing he was driving to the airport on icy roads outside Bozeman with his wife and their two sons on Monday when the crash happened.

"I hit a big patch of ice and I could not stop our SUV," Baier said at the end of his show on Tuesday. "We slid into the intersection of a busy road and into the path of a big pickup truck, which slammed into our driver's side door. The air bags deployed, the windows shattered, we careened into a ditch and flipped sideways."

Baier, 48, said a passing motorist stopped and the family was able to climb out of the flipped vehicle. He said first responders got them to a hospital quickly, from which he says they left "banged up but alive."

A photo provided by the Montana Highway Patrol showed Baier's vehicle on its side in a snowy ditch. Three passengers in Baier's vehicle were treated for minor injuries that he described as "a concussion, 14 stitches on a chin, a jostled tooth and a sprained ankle."

One passenger in the truck was also transported to a hospital for minor injuries, said John Barnes, a spokesman for the Montana Department of Justice.

No citations were issued, and authorities don't suspect alcohol or drugs were factors in the crash, Barnes said.

Baier returned to the air Tuesday night. He thanked his audience for their thoughts and prayers and he became teary as he told viewers to count their blessings.

"I had to be here today to show you I'm OK," he said.