Bob Simon Cause of Death: 'Giant of Broadcast Journalism' in NY Road Accident

Veteran U.S. journalist Bob Simon was described as "a giant of broadcast journalism" as colleagues paid lavish tribute to him following the horrendous road accident that claimed his life on Wednesday in New York City.

A long-time member of the CBS Network's "60 Minutes" on-air team, the 73-year-old Simon had a decades-long career in broadcast journalism. He covered major conflicts in the world and was once held prisoner in Iraq.

Simon was riding a hired car on Wednesday when it slammed into a Mercedes Benz and then hit metal lane barriers on Manhattan's West Side around 6:45 p.m. ET, New York City police said.

Rescuers rushed Simon to Saint Luke's Roosevelt Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead upon arrival. He suffered fatal injuries to his head and torso, police said.

The 44-year-old driver of the hired car, identified as Reshad Abdul Fedahi, was in a stable condition at Bellevue Hospital with injuries to his arms and legs. The driver of the Mercedes escaped serious injury.

Initial reports said Fedahi was driving erratically before the accident as he allegedly suffered a heart attack, causing him to hit the Mercedes Benz and the road barriers.

However, the Daily Mail reported that Fedahi might have accelerated instead of braking before hitting the Mercedes. The source noted that the professional driver had his license suspended six times.

The New York City police said Fedahi could have been speeding and didn't have enough experience driving. It was also revealed that Simon wasn't wearing a seat belt.

Simon's death was announced on CBS Evening News by Scott Pelley who appeared shocked as he offered his condolences to Simon's wife and extended family. Simon is survived by his wife Francoise and daughter Tanya who works as a producer on "60 Minutes."

Prominent journalists and producers both online and on-air were quick to pay lavish tribute to their colleague.

David Rhodes, CBS News President, hailed Simon, calling him "a giant of broadcast journalism, and a dear friend to everyone in the CBS News family."

"Bob was for the last five decades simply one of the best, in my opinion the best, in the world at getting a story, telling a story, writing a story, and making it simply unforgettable," said an emotional Anderson Cooper during his "Anderson Cooper 360" show on CNN on Wednesday night. "He was a warrior poet who loved life and loved people," he added.

Simon – described by Reuters as tall, lanky and possessed of an erudite demeanor on camera – won broadcast journalism's highest honor, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award, for the piece "Shame of Srebrencia," a "60 Minutes II" report on genocide during the Bosnian War.

Simon joined CBS in 1967. During his long journalism career, he received 27 Emmy Awards and three George Foster Peabody Awards. He was also a war correspondent for several years. He covered the Vietnam War where he was on one of the last helicopters to leave Saigon before the city fell. Simon also spent 40 days in captivity during the Gulf War in 1991.

His Emmy awards included domestic stories as well as reporting from Vietnam, Lebanon, Cambodia, Saudi Arabia, India and China.

One of his Emmy awards was his investigative report on "60 Minutes" titled "Curveball," an investigation into an Iraqi defector whose testimony eventually led America to war.

At the start of the Gulf War in January 1991, Simon was part of a CBS News team that spent 40 days in Iraqi prisons after being captured by Iraqi forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.

Two years later, after writing about his experience in his book, "Forty Days," he returned to Baghdad to cover the U.S. bombing of Iraq.

At the time of his death, Simon was working on a story that focused on the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa.