WASHINGTON -- U.S Rep. Tim Murphy was injured while visiting U.S. troops and commanders in Iraq last week when the armored minibus in which he was traveling swerved off the road to avoid an oncoming vehicle.

U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy plans to return home today

Mr. Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, and two other congressmen were riding in a convoy to the Baghdad airport Saturday when the accident occurred.

U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., was not injured. U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., was sent to the American Ibn Sina Hospital in Baghdad for evaluation. Lara Battles, a spokeswoman for him, said she believed he was doing well. She declined to comment further.

Mr. Murphy was first treated at Ibn Sina Hospital and later flown to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany for tests and evaluations, according to the U.S. Embassy.

All three lawmakers were able to walk away from the accident, according to U.S. officials in Iraq.

Mr. Murphy spent Thanksgiving with American soldiers, including several from Pittsburgh, in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he also had a meeting with President Hamid Karzai. He then traveled to Baghdad to visit with U.S. troops from Pennsylvania, and was briefed by Gen. George Casey, the head of multinational forces in Iraq, and the head of the Iraqi Security Force.

In an interview from the hospital in Germany yesterday, Mr. Murphy said the accident occurred on the way to the Baghdad airport in a military convoy. The convoy was traveling in the middle of the road, which is a common practice used by the military in Iraq to deter oncoming motorists, the U.S. Embassy said. Shortly after dark, an oncoming tanker truck refused to yield.

Mr. Murphy said their driver was forced to veer off the road after it appeared that the truck might try to hit their vehicle head-on.

"Then all of a sudden brakes get slammed on," Mr. Marshall was quoted in an Associated Press account. "Then we hit something and go off the side of the road and tip over."

The U.S. Embassy said the driver's quick reaction "probably averted disaster."

Mr. Murphy said his vehicle struck a mass of rock, ripping off the axle and wheels, and he was thrown from his seat as the van landed on its side.

Mr. Murphy and Mr. Skelton were taken to the hospital by a Black Hawk helicopter. Because Mr. Murphy needed an MRI, he later flew to Germany with wounded soldiers in a C-17 that he described as a flying intensive care unit.

"A lot of troops have it a lot worse," Mr. Murphy said of his injuries. "I'm lying next to these guys -- I'm watching the kind of care they get and it's just amazing to watch our medical teams go to work. It's the best of the best.

"With the kinds of wounds that we're seeing nowadays, in other wars they would not have made it. And these guys are being fixed up and sent to Germany and sent to the United States sometimes in 24 to 36 hours."

Mr. Murphy said he suffered head and neck injuries, but his MRI did not show any nerve damage.

During his brief visit to a Baghdad hospital, Mr. Murphy said, he was treated next to a 7-year-old Iraqi who had been shot by al-Qaida and whose parents were killed. Mr. Murphy said the experience reinforced his view that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq now would be the wrong course.

Mr. Murphy plans to return home today.

He had announced last week that he was going to Iraq to serve turkey to the troops, expressing concern that there was so little thought among others toward making such a gesture.

Mr. Murphy, 52, has a doctorate in psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a practicing psychologist before being elected to the state Senate in 1997 and to the 18th District congressional seat in 2003. Mr. Murphy and his wife, Nan, live in Upper St. Clair. Their daughter, Bevin, is a college student.