Two close friends of US Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords yesterday told of the joyful “miracle” moment when the wounded lawmaker opened her eyes for the first time after an assassination attempt.
US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and US Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz told reporters as they flew back from an Arizona tragedy memorial service with US President Barack Obama of the stunning moment when Giffords woke up.
Gillibrand said she, Wasserman-Schultz and House of Representatives Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi went in to see Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, at a hospital intensive care unit before the memorial service.
She said they joked about what they would do together when Giffords, gunned down in a shooting rampage that killed six people on Saturday, got better, and said the lawmaker started rubbing and gripping their hands.
“The more we joked about what we were going to do, she started to open her eyes, literally. She started to struggle,” Gillibrand said. “Her eye is flickering and Mark sees this and gets extremely excited. He said ‘Gabby open your eyes, open your eyes’ he is really urging her forward, and the doctor is perking up.”
“It is a good 30 seconds where she is trying to get her eyes open and she finally opens her eyes, and you could tell she was desperately trying to focus and it took enormous strength from her,” she said.
The New York senator said she and Wasserman-Schultz were crying and that Kelly, a NASA space shuttle astronaut, then told his wife that if she could see them, she should give a thumbs up sign.
“Instead of giving us the thumbs up, she literally raises her whole arm,” Gillibrand said.
The moment “felt like a miracle. It felt like we were watching a miracle,” said Wasserman-Schultz, and the two women compared the emotion of the moment to giving birth to a child.
Giffords has been heavily sedated after major brain surgery was carried out soon after she was shot through the head by a gunman at a political meet-and-greet event she was hosting in Tucson, Arizona.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama first heard about the dramatic episode when he was traveling with Kelly and first lady Michelle Obama from the hospital to a sports arena hosting the memorial service for the dead of the Arizona shooting spree.
Kelly gave the go-ahead for Obama to inform the audience of what had happened during his speech, a gesture that sparked a delighted audience reaction.
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