ABC News President David Westin and anchor Elizabeth Vargas discuss the condition of anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt on Monday on Good

New York ? ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt showed improvement Monday, a day after a roadside explosion rocked their vehicle as they traveled through Iraq, spraying shrapnel that left them both with severe head injuries.

The two journalists, who were airlifted to a U.S. military medical center in Landstuhl, Germany, on Sunday night, remained in serious but stable condition. ABC News President David Westin said that doctors there reported that the two men showed signs of improvement, although Woodruff – who sustained upper body injuries, as well – had more extensive wounds. Both could be transported to the United States for treatment as soon as today.

“We have a long way to go,” Westin said in a statement Monday. “But it appears that we may have also come some distance from yesterday.”

Woodruff on Monday responded to stimuli on his hands and feet and briefly opened his eyes, ABC correspondent Jim Sciutto reported on “World News Tonight.” Vogt was awake and joking, which “gave us a chance to smile today,” Sciutto said.

Vogt’s wife, Vivian, and Woodruff’s wife, Lee, along with his brother and sister-in-law, waited at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for updates about their condition. They were joined by Melanie Bloom, a close friend of the Woodruff family and the widow of former NBC correspondent David Bloom, who died in Iraq in 2003.

“Having seen him, we think he’s going to recover eventually,” Woodruff’s brother David told ABC. “It’s going to be a long road, but I think he’s a strong guy and he’s going to make it. … We want to see him recover and return to what he loves to do.”

Landstuhl chief surgeon Guillermo Tellez noted that patients with similar injuries “in most cases, whether they are severe or not, many times do heal.”

ABC News President David Westin and anchor Elizabeth Vargas discuss the condition of anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt on Monday on Good

Former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, a friend of Woodruff, said Woodruff’s family was encouraged to learn that the swelling in his brain had gone down after doctors removed part of his skull on Sunday. The ABC newsman also has a broken collarbone and broken ribs, and doctors had not yet determined whether shrapnel had penetrated his brain, Brokaw said.

He said Woodruff’s family had also learned more details about the explosion from witnesses. “Immediately after the explosion, he turned to his producer and said, ‘Am I alive?’ and ‘Don’t tell Lee,’ and then he began to cry out in excruciating pain,” Brokaw said.

Woodruff, co-anchor of “World News Tonight,” and Vogt, a veteran television cameraman, were traveling Sunday in an Iraqi military vehicle attached to the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division as part of a routine convoy near Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, when they hit a roadside bomb.

At the time, both men – who were wearing body armor and Kevlar helmets – were standing up in the back hatch of the lead vehicle, taping a video of the patrol. After the explosion, insurgents began firing from three directions, ABC reported.

ABC spokeswoman Cathie Levine said the network had not yet determined how it would handle the broadcast in Woodruff’s absence. On Sunday and Monday, Vargas anchored “World News Tonight” alone.

Woodruff, 44, a father of four, has been at ABC News since 1996. Vogt, 46, is a three-time Emmy award-winning cameraman from Canada who has spent the last 20 years based in Europe covering global events for CBC, BBC and now exclusively for ABC News.