Gabrielle Giffords has shown no increase in brain swelling and is now able to breath on her own, doctors said at a news conference Tuesday morning, but they said they planned to keep the wounded congresswoman on a ventilator as a precaution.
Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center, said Ms. Giffords remained in stable condition on Tuesday. She was hospitalized after being struck in the head with a gunshot fired at point-blank range while she was talking with constituents outside a Tucson supermarket on Saturday. Six people were killed in the shooting incident and 14 more were injured, including the Ms. Giffords, the apparent main target of the attack.
“I am happy to say that she is holding her own,” Dr. Lemole said. “She is able to generate her own breath.”
Doctors have removed nearly half of Ms. Giffords’s skull to prevent swelling from damaging her brain. “This the phase of the care where so much of it is up to her,” he said. “She is going to take her recovery at her own pace.”
Relatives of some others wounded in the shooting appeared at the hopsital news conference along with Dr. Lemole. They said that though their family members continue to recover from the physical wounds they received, the emotional scarring would probably take far longer to heal.
Bill Hileman, whose wife Susan Hileman was shot three times, said that when he visited her bedside, she asked him, “What about Christina?” Ms. Hileman had been holding hands outside the supermarket with the Hilemans’ nine-year-old neighbor, Christina Greene, when the shots rang out; the girl was also hit and later died of her wounds.
Mr. Hileman said that though his wife had been in a morphine-induced haze, she was clearly devastated when he told her that the girl had died. “We’re going to have that as an ongoing issue that we’ll be dealing with,” Mr. Hileman said about his wife’s feelings of guilt. Ms. Hileman had invited Christina to accompany her to the event at the supermarket that morning because of the girl’s interest in politics.
Memorial services were scheduled for Tuesday evening at two Tucson churches for victims of the shooting. President Obama and his wife are expected to attend another memorial service on Wednesday.
Jared L. Loughner, the man arrested at the scene on Saturday and accused of firing the shots, was led into a federal courtroom in Phoenix on Monday, his head shaved bare and his hands and feet in restraints. In the hearing, he agreed not to contest his continued imprisonment, but offered no hint of how he would respond to the federal murder and attempted murder charges that have already been filed against him, concerning the five victims who were federal employees.
“Yes, I am Jared Lee Loughner,” he told Magistrate Judge Lawrence O. Anderson, staring blankly ahead with his lawyer, Judy Clarke, a veteran public defender, at his side. The defendant, a 22-year-old college dropout, was wide-eyed and had a wound to his right temple. At the defense table, his eyes darted back and forth and his mouth curled up at one point into a quick smile.
Ms. Clarke signaled that she intended to push for the case to be handled by an out-of-state judge, since one of the victims her client is accused of killing was Judge John M. Roll of Federal District Court in Tucson. Already, all the federal judges in Tucson have recused themselves. As some of Judge Roll’s friends and colleagues looked on, Ms. Clarke said she had “great concern” about any Arizona judges or prosecutors handling the case.
Mr. Loughner (pronounced LOF-ner) faces two federal murder charges and three attempted murder charges in an attack that prosecutors described as an attempt to assassinate Rep. Giffords, Democrat of Arizona.
Mr. Loughner, dressed in beige prison garb, a white T-shirt and blue slip-on shoes, agreed not to challenge his continued detention without bail after Wallace H. Kleindienst, a federal prosecutor, labeled him a danger and a flight risk. That prompted the judge to quickly rule, based on the serious charges, that Mr. Loughner was “a danger to the community” and ought to be held without bail.
“Good luck to you, Mr. Loughner,” Judge Anderson said as the defendant, who could face the death penalty if convicted, received a pat on the back from Ms. Clarke and was led away by security officers.
An outpouring of grief has been on display around the country. In Washington, President Obama stood with his wife, their heads bowed, overlooking the South Lawn of the White House at 11 a.m. as a single bell tolled to honor the wounded and the dead. On the steps of the East Front of the Capitol, hundreds of Congressional aides gathered to observe the moment.
“Obviously all of us are still grieving and in shock from the tragedy that took place,” Mr. Obama said in the Oval Office, where he was meeting on Monday with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.
“Gabby Giffords and others are still fighting to recover,” said Mr. Obama, who is planning a trip to Tucson on Wednesday to meet with victims and their families and offer his first extensive public remarks since the shooting. “Families are still absorbing the enormity of their losses.” At the start of the State Legislature’s session in Phoenix on Monday, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, decided to scrap the traditional annual address laying out her legislative agenda and instead honor the dead and call upon people across the state to pray.
“Arizona is in pain, yes,” Ms. Brewer said. “Our grief is profound. We are yet in the first hours of our sorrow, but we have not been brought down. We will never be brought down.” Meanwhile, new details emerged about the suspect’s actions before the shooting, which was carried out with a Glock 19, a medium-size, 9 millimeter semiautomatic pistol.
“Arizona is in pain, yes,” Ms. Brewer said. “Our grief is profound. We are yet in the first hours of our sorrow, but we have not been brought down. We will never be brought down.” Meanwhile, new details emerged about the suspect’s actions before the shooting, which was carried out with a Glock 19, a medium-size, 9 millimeter semiautomatic pistol.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.