The Moment Giffords Opened Her Eyes - "She was clearly trying to hug him"

[jefferson_dem]

The Moment Giffords Opened Her Eyes

More details are coming out about the moment Gabrielle Giffords' opened her eyes on Wednesday, a story President Barack Obama relayed during his speech at a memorial for the victims in Tucson.

Giffords was in her hospital room with husband Mark Kelly, her parents, a doctor, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

According to Gillibrand, Giffords had been responding to the presence of her visitors by rubbing and gripping their hands -- and suddenly she started struggling to open her eyes.

As several people in the room recounted, Giffords' husband asked her to try to give a thumbs-up. She responded, after a delay, by raising her arm and trying to grab her husband. "She was clearly trying to hug him," said Gillibrand, who added that Giffords was able to respond to additional commands like touching her husband's ring.

"It felt like we were watching a miracle," said Wasserman Schultz. "The only way I could describe the feeling that we had, that I had, was other than the birth of my kids, this was the most incredible feeling, to see literally your -- one of your closest friends just struggle to come back to you, to come back to her family, to come back to her friends."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/12/obama-arizona-speech-pres_1_n_808315.html

[lunatica]

1. There I go crying again

[FarPoint]

2. Thats a lot of people in an ICU room.

Plus a ventilator and all the other monitoring equipment. Just saying ....maybe she is in a private like room set up as an ICU for security and stuff.