The medical team at University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson announced that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in the head on Saturday during an apparent assassination attempt, remains in critical condition. Chief of neurosurgery Dr. Michael Lemole said, "At this phase in the game, no change is good, and we have no change," but added, "We're not out of the woods yet; that swelling can sometimes take three days or five days to maximize. But every day that goes by and we don't see an increase, we're slightly more optimistic."
Giffords was shot outside a Tucson Safeway during a constituent event at point blank range by Jared Lee Loughner. The bullet entered her head from the back, traveled through the left side of her brain, and exited the front of Giffords' head (the Daily News has an excellent graphic). The doctors' biggest concerns are infection (there are still bone and bullet fragments), bleeding and swelling; Lemole said that, so far, CAT scans do not show swelling and in most cases, swelling occurs in the third day, so if there is no swelling tomorrow, they can breathe "a collective sigh of relief." Lemole also said, "We can't measure psychological function nor would we try."
Six people were killed in the rampage, and nine others besides Giffords were treated at the hospital, with two discharged, six in fair or good condition and another in ICU. Trauma director Dr. Peter Rhee, who was in the Navy for 24 years and was a battlefield surgeon in Iraq and Afghanistan, told reporters that while their surgical care is ending, "This is a time period when it is very emotional for us. We are accustomed to taking care of post traumatic stress syndrome... We have to bring them back as a whole human being, and that's what we try concentrate on as a trauma center, more than just whether you're alive or dead." He also said of Giffords, "If you get shot in the head, you should be dead. She is thinking. She is following commands. This is remarkable."
Giffords' 20-year-old intern, Daniel Hernandez, is being hailed as a hero for his quick thinking and credited in helping save her life. While he is downplaying his role, Hernandez, who is a certified nursing assistant, told the Early Show that after the shooting, he was "Trying to check for pulses, trying to see who was still breathing. I was able to check two or three people before I noticed that the congresswoman had been hit... Once I noticed that the congresswoman had been hit, that became my top priority, not because of her position but because of the severity of her wounds because she had been shot in the head."
Hernandez, who had only been interning for five days, said, "She was slumped over, but in the position she was in, there was some danger of asphyxiation just because of the way she was lying in her own blood. So I wanted to make sure that at first we could get her in a position so that she could breathe properly." So he put the Congresswoman in his lap and then applied pressure to the wound; Giffords was able to respond to him by squeezing his hand. Hernandez said, "The real heroes are people like Congresswoman Giffords, who have dedicated their lives to public service and helping others."
