Giffords Reveals Names of Tucson Shooting Victims
Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot in the head has revealed the names of the persons who died in the Tucson shooting on Saturday.
Giffords, 41, knows that gunmen had killed six people and shot her in the head, but her family and friends wanted her to recover sufficiently to reveal who the victims were.
Gabe Zimmerman, her aide U.S. District Judge John Roll, and nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green and a close friend were among the people who died in the shootings.
Apart from Giffords 12 others were wounded in the mass shooting in Tuscon, Arizona.
The Arizona Republic reported in April that Giffords learned about the Tuscon shooting when her husband Mark Kelly read aloud a story about her from a New York Times.
She noticed while reading the story her husband had skipped a paragraph that gave a rundown of the dead and wounded.
Giffords was released from hospital on June 15. But as a part of her rehabilitation she has been undergoing physical, occupational and speech therapy in Houston.
She had known for some time that six people had died, and 13 including herself had been wounded, Mark Kimble Giffords' senior press adviser told Reuters.
Near the end of July, shortly before she went to Congress, she asked who had died and she was told, Kimble said.
Giffords to cast her vote on debt ceiling made an appearance on Capitol Hill on August 1, which was a remarkable step recovering from the gunshot wound to the brain inflicted in the shooting.
But she has not announced whether she will be running for re-election, though Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz told CBS the day after Giffords came to Congress that they expect her to come back and help us full time.
She would like to come back; at this point, there's no firm plans on anything, said Kimble.
Giffords is now just focusing on her recovery, Kimble said.
“She’s fully focused on her rehabilitation, that is a full-time job for her, he said. She went to Washington for that one vote because she thought it was an extremely crucial issue to the future of the country.
Giffords was in a critical condition after receiving a gunshot wound in her head during a mass shooting that occurred on Jan 8, 2011, near Tucson, Arizona. The Democrat from Arizona was holding an open constituent meeting in a Casas Adobes Safeway supermarket parking lot, when the gunman drew a pistol and shot Giffords in the head at point blank range. The shooter then allegedly proceeded to randomly fire at other members of the crowd.
Giffords was taken to the hospital and had to undergo an emergency surgery. Part of her skull was removed to prevent further brain damage caused by swelling. Gifford was placed in a medically induced coma and she opened her eyes for the first time, four days after the shooting. Despite her fragile condition, Giffords made a gritty recovery and continued to improve. She was transferred to Memorial Hermann Medical Center's Institute for Rehabilitation and Research in Houston to undergo a program of physical therapy and rehabilitation.
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