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Author Topic: Ariz. Rep. Giffords in serious condition after Tucson shooting; eight others inj  (Read 42316 times)
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MuffyBee
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« Reply #80 on: January 11, 2011, 11:02:21 AM »

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/11/earlyshow/main7234527.shtml
Ex-Friend: Loughner Wanted Eyes of Public, Media
Says Alleged Shooter Was Once "Just a Regular Kid" Who Became Increasingly Isolated, Nihilistic
January 11, 2011

CBS)  TUCSON - In the hours before Jared Lee Loughner allegedly opened fire outside a Tucson supermarket, killing six people, he reached out to an old friend.

Early Saturday morning about 2 a.m., Bryce Tierney's phone lit up. He didn’t pick up - it displayed "restricted number" - but shortly afterwards Tierney listened to the voice mail and heard a quick, chilling message:

"Hey, it's Jared, we've had some good times and peace out."
Tierney, who was an old friend from high school and college, said he had not had contact with Loughner for almost a year, when he was receiving "really weird" text messages - "sort of like the weird, strange, under-the-radar sort of comments that he would make publicly, around people, that would make people feel real uncomfortable," Tierney said.

He described them as "nihilistic comments that make absolutely no sense."

As news of the deadly shooting spread through Tucson, his fears grew, thinking that the shooter may have been his old friend: "I'm not very sure who else would shoot Gabrielle Giffords, you know?"
On CBS' "Early Show" Tuesday, Tierney recalled Loughner's obsession with Giffords goes back to a 2007 event where Loughner posed a question which he didn't feel she answered, and became angry. Tierney said Loughner asked Giffords: "What is government if words have no meaning?"

"I was like, 'Wow, Jared, I can't believe they actually asked your question, because that's sort of ridiculous!'" Tierney said. "He seemed to dwell on the fact that she wouldn't answer his question. I think that was just like the start of it."

When asked if Loughner was the kind of person who wanted attention, Tierney said, "Attention? I would say more just the reaction, more of trolling for a reaction, and the eye of the public, and the eyes of the media, and stuff like that."

Tierney said his friend wasn't political, but he was increasingly frustrated with government.

"I knew Jared Loughner as just a regular kid," Tierney said. "I never thought I'd, you know, know him as a mass murderer."

Loughner stopped talking to his friends last March. In fact, he had no contact with Tierney in the ten months leading up to Saturday's voice mail. Tierney said, "He just seemed sort of down."

He said it's "a very strange, uncomfortable spot to be in, to know that you were possibly, like, one of the last people that he might have attempted to contact, you know, before doing this. It's pretty uncomfortable."

Tierney said he would have picked up the phone Saturday morning if he'd known it was Loughner - and that maybe things would have turned out differently.

"If I knew he was on the other line, I probably would have picked up the phone, I mean, purely based on the fact that I hadn't heard from him in a long, long time," Tierney told anchor Erica Hill. "It's hard to say, like, what I'd say to him because I'm really not sure what he was going to say to me, you know? But if I had the chance, I probably would have answered the phone just because it was a friend that I hadn't talked to in a long time trying, you know, to get back in contact."

"Do you think anything would have been different?" Hill asked.

"I think that's hard to say. But, you know, possibly," Tierney said.

When asked his reaction to Loughner's mug shot, Tierney said, "I think it's what everyone else's reaction was: It's a pretty creepy picture. I mean, it's very disturbing."

"Did you see anything in that face or in those eyes that was the Jared Loughner that you knew, who was a friend of yours?" Hill asked.

"Absolutely not, no. No."
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« Reply #81 on: January 11, 2011, 11:04:47 AM »

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/10/nation/la-na-0111-loughner-parents-20110111
Jared Lee Loughner's parents alone with their anguish, neighbor says
January 10, 2011

Reporting from Tucson — The parents of Jared Lee Loughner, accused of shooting Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people, were huddled in seclusion in their Tucson home Monday night, his father crying and his mother so shaken she could not get out of bed, a neighbor told The Times.

As the sun was beginning to set Monday, Randy Loughner called his neighbor, retired gasoline truck driver Wayne Smith, 70, to ask him to get their mail. Smith, who is not particularly close to the Loughners, grabbed the mail and was invited inside.
"They're in there now," Smith said in a subsequent interview with The Times. "They're both in there crying. He's crying and hanging on to me and she's not even out of bed."

Smith described the Loughners as very private and said they knew few people on their street, although they had lived in the neighborhood since before Jared, 22, was born. He said Jared was their only child. Smith said Loughner's mother, Amy, had a good job with good retirement and pay, and Randy was a stay-at-home dad who liked to work on cars.

"He worshipped the boy," Smith said.

Smith said that on Saturday morning just after 11, their quiet neighborhood suddenly filled with sheriff's patrol cars and FBI agents who cordoned off the Loughners' home. Smith said he saw the Loughners come home, with brown plastic grocery bags and bottles of water in the back of their old white pickup truck. The couple parked across the street from their house.

Then Smith saw a TV news report identifying Jared Lee Loughner as the suspect.

"I didn't even know their last name until Saturday," Smith said. But he knew their son's name was Jared.

He approached the Loughners. "I said, 'Guys, I hate to be the one to tell you, but he shot a bunch of people,'" Smith said. Amy Loughner, he said, "just come unglued."

All three wept together outside on Saturday. "We stood right out there and cried for an hour. I'm a softie," Smith said. "A man needs compassion. He's broken up about his son, but also about all those people who died."

Smith said the family is intensely private. "The best way I can describe it, they're like a mountain man," he said. "They want to be alone."
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« Reply #82 on: January 11, 2011, 11:15:21 AM »

I believe that the parents saw a lot of red flags, I also believe that they didn't think he was capable of what he did, how many parents would? Also, we don't know if the parents tried to get Jared help, but since he was well over the age of 18, and if he didn't want help there isn't a whole lot you can do. I suppose you could have had him committed, but again, the parents probably didn't think he was that bad. If I am wrong I will gladly say I am. He sure appeared to be obsessed with the Congresswoman Giffords, and only he knows why that is. Also on all the ramblings going on, both on the internet and TV about all the vitriol statements and comments made by talk show hosts and politicians. Well no doubt there has been a lot of disgusting comments, actually for me disturbing, but in this case, I really don't think that is what pushed him over the edge IMO
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« Reply #83 on: January 11, 2011, 11:29:21 AM »

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jared-lee-loughner-family-portrait-isolation/story?id=12587114       Portrait of an isolated family    Looks like I was wrong perhaps about the parents, interesting article.
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« Reply #84 on: January 11, 2011, 11:44:56 AM »

http://www.kgun9.com/global/story.asp?s=13818705



Picture shows shrine in back of Jared Loughner's backyard
Updated: Jan 11, 2011 7:00 AM PST

Tucson, AZ (KGUN9) - Jared Lee Loughner made his first court appearance Monday afternoon in Phoenix. Loughner is the man accused of shooting more than a dozen people Saturday January 8th at a Safeway in Northwest Tucson.

Authorities searched Loughner's Tucson home. KGUN9 licensed this picture from Getty Images of a shrine in the back of Loughner's home. You can see a skull placed next to some candles. It's not known who took this picture and how they gained access to Loughner's home.
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« Reply #85 on: January 11, 2011, 11:52:49 AM »

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jared-lee-loughner-family-portrait-isolation/story?id=12587114       Portrait of an isolated family    Looks like I was wrong perhaps about the parents, interesting article.

From the article above:  But around 15 years ago the dynamic abruptly changed, Dahlstrom said.

So when Jared was around 7 something changed. 

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« Reply #86 on: January 11, 2011, 11:53:29 AM »

That is a great question how someone got in that yard and took pictures. I really don't know what to think about the so called shrine, strange yes.
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« Reply #87 on: January 11, 2011, 12:08:15 PM »

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jared-lee-loughner-family-portrait-isolation/story?id=12587114       Portrait of an isolated family    Looks like I was wrong perhaps about the parents, interesting article.

From the article above:  But around 15 years ago the dynamic abruptly changed, Dahlstrom said.

So when Jared was around 7 something changed. 



After reading the article, my mind was centered on that, Klaas.   With varied comments from neighbors or parents of a kid who may have been a friend of Jared, it's hard to figure out what really was going on there. 
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« Reply #88 on: January 11, 2011, 12:42:49 PM »

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/11/arizonans-rally-prevent-westboro-church-disruption-shooting-victims-funerals/
Arizonans Rally to Prevent Westboro Church Disruption of Shooting Victims' Funerals
January 11, 2011

Disgusted Arizona residents are locking arms to stop the Westboro Baptist Church from disrupting the funerals for victims of Saturday's shooting in Tucson, with bikers and others organizing a massive counter-protest and state lawmakers fast-tracking a bill to hamstring the so-called church.

The Kansas-based Westboro church is notorious for showing up at the funerals of dead soldiers and other high-profile gatherings wielding inflammatory anti-gay signs.

But when the church announced it would picket the funeral Thursday for the 9-year-old girl fatally shot over the weekend by a gunman at a Tucson grocery story who killed five others and injured 14 attending a town-hall session by Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Tucson- and Phoenix-area residents started organizing immediately.

They may not be able to stop them, but they plan on giving the grieving family as much of a buffer as possible between the protesters and the service.

"It makes me sick to my stomach," said Glen Littell, who's bringing a pack of bikers from the Phoenix Motorcycle Rider Group to Tucson on Thursday. "They're a stench from a slaughterhouse. We're just going to block the stench so the family can catch their breath."

Arizona state lawmakers are also scrambling -- to pass a bill that would order protesters to stay 300 feet away from the funeral. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the lead sponsor on the bill, said in an e-mail to colleagues that the plan is to suspend the rules Tuesday and fast-track the bill to protect the victims' families from the "hateful protest" from the Westboro Baptist Church.

She said she has the support of the Senate president and Gov. Jan Brewer, and the bill will go into effect "immediately" once it's signed.

"It's gonna happen," Sinema said. The senator said she was "real upset" after learning that the Westboro church planned on protesting but had a visceral reaction after reading their press release and sprung into action.

"It is the most disgusting thing I ever read in my entire life," she told FoxNews.com. "I literally threw up after I read it. … I'm like, 'I'm gonna fix this.'"

Littell said his riders are not looking for any violent confrontations. But he told FoxNews.com that Arizona bikers are going to do "whatever we have to do" to cordon off the family from the protests. A group called the Patriot Guard Riders often does this when the Westboro church pickets military funerals, but Littell said that group is not traveling to Tucson, so "we're stepping in."

"Our sole purpose will be to allow that family some dignity and respect … without having to worry about the a--holes," he said.

It's not clear whether the Westboro church intends to picket the funerals of all the victims of Saturday's attack. One press release from the group declared, "Thank God for the shooter," and said the group would picket the "funerals." Another release announced plans only for the protest on Thursday.

"God sent the shooter to deal with idolatrous America," the group said in a statement.

The Westboro church, led by Fred Phelps, believes that tragic events like the deaths of soldiers are punishment for tolerance of homosexuality.

The Supreme Court last fall heard arguments in a case brought against Phelps by the father of a soldier killed in Iraq whose funeral was protested by the group in 2006. The father, Albert Snyder, had won a multi-million dollar verdict against the church, claiming invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether free speech can be curbed at specific locations and events.

Sinema said the bill she was introducing is modeled on an Ohio law that has withstood court challenge. It would technically apply to protesters at any Arizona funeral, though Sinema was clear that it's directed at Westboro.

She said she hopes the protesters and counter-protesters avoid any violence at the service. Meanwhile, several grassroots groups have popped up on Facebook calling on Tucson residents to intervene.

"We will create a wall of humanity to allow the families who've lost their love ones to hold their funerals in peace, held with dignity, and surrounded in love," one of the Facebook groups says in a statement.

Another calls for a "peaceful protest" of the church at the funeral Thursday for 9-year-old Christina Green.

Littell has notified the Pima County Sheriff's Department and has reached out to several other biker groups notifying them of their planned presence at Green's funeral. He crossed his fingers that the Hells Angels would join them.

"Nothing says stand back and be silent like a Hells Angels presence," he said.

Littell added that if the church moves on to picket other funerals, his riders will follow.

"We're getting word there's gonna be a pretty large presence of bikers," he said. "Word's spreading. And spreading quickly."



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« Reply #89 on: January 11, 2011, 12:46:04 PM »

To make a family all of a sudden become so isolated, something very bad must have happened, how you go from friendly and nice to avoiding and not letting your child play with the other kids any longer, is just weird. We will probably find out more, and am curious what the prepared statement from dad is going to say?
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« Reply #90 on: January 11, 2011, 12:58:48 PM »

I sure hope the parents and family are buffered the best they can be from the Westboro Baptist Church 
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« Reply #91 on: January 11, 2011, 01:28:11 PM »

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/11/arizona.funeral.westboro/?hpt=Mid
video
Arizona lawmakers plan to block protesters within 300 feet of funerals
January 11, 2011

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) -- The Arizona State Legislature is expected to pass legislation Tuesday that will bar protesters at funerals from getting within 300 feet of services, a spokesman for the state Senate said.

The action, according to Senate spokesman Daniel Scarpinato, is in direct response to a controversial church's announcement that it will picket the funeral of Christina Green, the 9-year-old who was one of six people killed Saturday during the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, has made its name by staging protests at funerals of people who died of AIDS, gay people, soldiers and even Coretta Scott King.

Tucson just isn't that kind of town, says Christin Gilmer.

"For something like this to happen in Tucson was a really big shock to us all," she said. "Our nightmare happened when we saw Westboro Baptist Church was going to picket the funerals."
Loughner's classmates speak out
Gupta: How Giffords survived brain shot
Who is Gabrielle Giffords?
How do you defend a shooting suspect?
RELATED TOPICS

    * Gabrielle Giffords
    * Westboro Baptist Church
    * Tucson

In addition to the expected legislation, some Tucson residents are planning an "angel action" -- with 8-by-10-foot "angel wings" worn by participants to shield mourners from picketers. Angel actions were created by Coloradan Romaine Patterson, who was shocked to find the Topeka church and its neon signs outside the 1999 funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man beaten and left on a fence to die in Laramie, Wyoming.

"We want to surround them, in a non-violent way, to say that our community is united," Gilmer said. "We're a peaceful haven."

"You don't mess with Tucson," said Gilmer, 26, who described it as "a little dot of blue in a sea of red."

But political persuasions don't matter, she said. Republicans, Democrats, independents, right, left and center -- they've all offered their support. Forty-two people have signed up on a Facebook page called "Build Angel Wings for the Westboro Funeral Counter-Protest and Meeting" and more than 4,500 have signed up on another page to "Show Support for the Families of the Tucson Shooting Victims."

Jeff Rogers, the chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, said Tuesday that his organization as well as the local Republican Party also will ask people to line the funeral routes to form a barricade if the church follows through on its planned protest.

"People, businesses, they're all donating material and money to build the angel wings," said Gilmer, who is helping organize the action. And, she added, they're donating to a fund created to help pay for services for the victims of the shooting.

Chelsea Cohen, a 20-year-old senior at the University of Arizona who launched the "Show Support" Facebook page, said she never expected such a response.

"Once I heard that the Westboro Baptist Church was coming, I felt like something should be done to show support for the families," she said. "I don't have any experience in organizing these things. I thought I might get 50 to 100 people."

Cohen said she thinks many of the 4,500 people who've signed up on the Facebook page will be there "in spirit" on Thursday, when mourners gather for the funeral of Christina Taylor Green, who was born on September 11, 2001. But she added, Tucson is an active town, and the response isn't likely to be small.

"This isn't a counter-protest," she said. "We wanted it to show support for the families and to show that Tucson is there with love and support."

They don't want to interfere with the funeral in any way, Cohen said.

"We plan on being completely silent, and we're asking people not to bring signs or make comments about the Westboro Baptist Church," she said.

The angels will be doing the same thing.

"We're going to silently stand there so people can mourn the death of a 9-year-old girl who died in a senseless tragedy," Gilmer said.

Cohen said several groups are planning to be at the funeral to show their support, and there is an effort afoot to bring them all together "into one group so we can all be on the same page."

"I hope that everyone there can convey the peaceful message that we want to convey, she said

And if the church picketers persist, the silent supporters will be on hand for the funerals of U.S. District Judge John Roll, Gabriel Zimmerman, Dorothy Morris, Dorwin Stoddard and Phyllis Schneck, the other five victims of Saturday's shooting. Giffords, who was shot in the head and is in critical condition, and 13 other people were wounded.

Westboro Baptist Church, founded by its spiritual leader, Fred Phelps, and run mostly by family members, did not respond to a request for an interview in time for this article. But a flier released by the church about the picket targets the Roman Catholic Church because Christina and her family were members.

"God hates Catholics!" the flier, posted on the church's "God Hates Fags" website, says. "God calls your religion 'vain,' as it's empty of His truth; you worship idols!"
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« Reply #92 on: January 11, 2011, 01:29:58 PM »

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41018273/ns/health-health_care/
Doctor: Giffords breathing on her own
Ariz. congresswoman remains on a breathing tube to protect against complications
January 11, 2011

NEW YORK — Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is breathing on her own, one of the doctors treating her said Tuesday.

Dr. Michael Lemole, the chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, said at a news conference that the congresswoman is still following simple commands, although she remains on a breathing tube to protect against complications such as pneumonia. She's alert and responding to doctors.

Earlier Tuesday Lemole told TODAY there were no significant changes in her condition overnight. "As frustrating as that may sound, that's a good thing," Lemole said.

When asked about swelling in her brain on the third day, Lemole said a CAT scan early Tuesday showed no increase in swelling, although he cautioned that it can sometimes take longer for the condition to peak. Nearly half of Giffords' skull was removed to alleviate any swelling.
She has given a thumbs-up sign and tried to grab at the breathing tube, an encouraging sign of the level of consciousness and her reaction to pain.

"The fact that she's able to register that discomfort and then react to it, again, it means the brain is working on a higher level," Lemole said.

Without speculating on the congresswoman's long-term prognosis, Lemole said she has the "full range" of recovery ahead of her.

"I've seen people in this scenario make very little improvement and require constant care, and I've seen other people ... who have made remarkable recoveries -- functional recoveries -- and gone back to work," Lemole said. People who suffer penetrating traumatic brain injuries often develop paralysis and cognitive problems.

Usually with a penetrating injury through the skull, survival and recovery is "abysmal," said Lemole at the news conference. "She has no right to look this good."

Giffords is expected to remain in the ICU for at least another week.
(snip)
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« Reply #93 on: January 11, 2011, 01:44:30 PM »

http://www.kvoa.com/news/wednesday-s-mass-memorial-opens-doors-at-4-p-m-/

Wednesday's mass memorial opens doors at 4 p.m.

Posted: Jan 11, 2011 10:23 AM

TUCSON - The mass memorial service scheduled for Wednesday will open to the public at 4 p.m. at the McKale Center on the UA campus.

Together We Thrive: Tucson and America," is free and open to the campus and greater Tucson community, according to a UA press release.

President Obama and the First Lady are planning on attending the service, which will begin a 6 p.m.

Attendees are encourages to show up early, as a capacity crows is expected, and there will be heavy security as part of the President's visit.

The event will include remarks by President Obama, UA President Robert Shelton, state and federal officials and members of the Associated Students of the UA.

The event will also include a Native-American blessing, a moment a silence, a poetry reading, and presentation of messages from the public.
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« Reply #94 on: January 11, 2011, 03:34:36 PM »

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/11/giffords.brain.surgery/?hpt=Sbin



Giffords in key period after brain injury
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

(CNN) -- After surviving a gunshot wound to the head at a political event Saturday, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords remains in critical condition, and Tuesday was seen as significant in her recovery.

The brain tends to swell the most on the third day after a traumatic injury, and it's a very good sign if she makes it past the third and fourth day, said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of the Cedars-Sinai Hospital Department of Neurosurgery in Los Angeles, who is not involved in treating Giffords.

She has a breathing tube to protect her lungs, but is generating her own breaths, said Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, at a news conference Tuesday. Doctors say Giffords has been responsive to commands.

"It's simply asking her to raise fingers, to squeeze on their fingers. It's not at a point yet where they can ask her to talk, because she's still on a respirator. But the signs that she is conscious are manifesting and we're very excited," Mike McNulty, Giffords' campaign chairman and close friend, told CNN's John King on Monday.

The first week or two is considered the acute and critical care stage, said Dr. M. Sean Grady, chief of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who is not involved in Giffords' care. After that, the degree and duration of recovery depend on how much tissue was damaged, and what the consequences of that damage are. Knowing the extent of impairment is impossible before Giffords wakes up, he said.

Recovery will take several months, even up to a year and a half, experts say.

Gunshot wounds to the head are fatal in more than 90% of cases, and many patients die before arriving at a hospital, according to neurosurgery experts at the University of California, Los Angeles.

About 1.7 million people experience traumatic brain injuries each year; of them, 52,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women are less likely than men to suffer them. About 80% of patients with traumatic brain injuries receive treatment and are released from an emergency department.

ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, who nearly died five years ago from an IED explosion in Iraq, is such a survivor. He wrote Monday that in a way, Giffords' case seems more hopeful than his own, because she has responded to simple commands at a stage when he did not, and interventions have improved even since his injury.

"Medicine has never been so advanced as it is today. If I was hit five years earlier I really don't believe I would have survived. I know in my heart that she will recover as well," Woodruff wrote.

"Still it takes so much longer to regain what we once had. There is no medicine or science or facts that can prove the power of the family. I was surrounded by my wife, parents, children and friends and that made this trip much faster."

James Brady, who was President Reagan's press secretary, suffered a brain injury during an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981. He is partially paralyzed, and has impairments in speech and memory.

"The brain is just as treatable as any other organ in the body; it's just that yes, it's a lot more delicate," said Dr. Stephan Mayer, director of the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at Columbia University Medical Center, who is not involved in Giffords' care.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have actually helped U.S. surgeons advance their techniques in treating traumatic brain injuries, Mayer said. Brain injury is the signature of modern warfare, and surgeons faced with a plethora of patients from missiles, blasts and explosions have developed a better understanding of how to help the brain heal.

Dr. Peter Rhee, Giffords' surgeon at University Medical Center in Tucson, told the Los Angeles Times his years of experience doing battlefield casualty care in the Navy prepared him for situations like treating Giffords and other victims of Saturday's shooting. But it also put things in perspective: "When we have a mass casualty of 11 people here, it's really not as bad as it can get," he told the Times.

The craniectomy, the procedure that Giffords underwent -- which involves removing portions of the skull to allow the injured brain room to swell -- is one of those advances that had success in Iraq, and have subsequently become more common in the U.S., Mayer said. U.S. doctors feared this procedure would leave patients as vegetables, or with a lifetime of misery and suffering. They didn't understand the point of leaving the skull bone off. But the brain is "more resilient and plastic than we thought," Mayer said.

Neurosurgeons distinguish between "penetrating" injuries, such as bullets that go through the brain, and "blunt" injuries, which refer to the trauma of hitting one's head against an object or the floor, for example. A bullet creates a focused wound to the brain, concentrated in one area, while a concussion or other blunt injury creates more diffuse harm, said Grady.

Because it's easier to know which tissue is damaged, a focused wound can be better from the surgeon's point of view, Grady said. However, in some cases, the blast wave of a bullet can spread through brain tissue, impacting multiple areas.

Both of these forms of brain injury have significant neurological consequences, and can cause spinal fluid leaks and infection, Grady said.

"It's a little bit like Humpty Dumpty, we're not able to put brains back together again," Grady said. Still, "the brain is capable of remarkable recovery," he said.

In Giffords' case, the bullet entered and exited only the left hemisphere of the brain. If Giffords was lucky enough to not have certain areas critically damaged, she has a good chance to make a substantial recovery, Grady said.
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« Reply #95 on: January 11, 2011, 03:43:21 PM »

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A5RE20110111
Tucson shooting victim shielded wife from hail of bullets
January 11, 2011

(Reuters) - An elderly man who died using his body to shield his wife from a withering hail of bullets when a gunman sprayed a crowd in Tucson on Saturday, was remembered for his heroics on Tuesday.
Dorwan Stoddard, a 76-year-old retired construction worker, died saving his wife, Mavanelle, by covering her on the ground as the gunmen shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others at a street corner congressional outreach event.

"We are just blessed that he is walking with the Lord now, but what a way to go," Mavanelle's daughter Angela Robinson, said during a morning news conference at Tucson's University Medical Center on Tuesday, at which the relatives of the dead and wounded joined medical staff to tell their stories.

A 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, made his first court appearance on Monday on five federal charges, including the attempted assassination of Giffords, who remains in critical condition.

Among the dead were a federal judge, a congressional aide to Giffords and nine-year-old student Christina Taylor-Green, who was being escorted to the event by a family friend to get a glimpse of government in action.

CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS

This was the second love match for the retired couple -- they were boyfriend and girlfriend in sixth grade. After both had 40-year marriages end in a spouse's death, they were reunited through a cousin and soon became a couple again, Robinson said.

Only after going with her husband to the emergency room did Mavanelle realize she had also been shot. She was listed in fair condition on Monday and is doing well, despite the traumatic ordeal, another daughter Penny Wilson said.

"She is doing quite well, I think," Wilson said. "She has a lot of strength."

Also at the news conference was Bill Hileman whose wife Susan was shot three times and suffered a broken hip at the store, while escorting Taylor-Green to the "Congress on the Corner" event.

Hileman said his wife was having "flashbacks" to the incident during moments of transition between sleep and waking, Bill Hileman said.

"She's calling out ... 'Christina, Christina! let's get out of here! Let's get out of here!" he said.

Hileman's voice wavered as he struggled to describe how he told his wife that the girl had died. He said that as soon as Susan had a tube removed, allowing her to talk, she asked about the girl.

"She grabbed my hand and looked in my eyes and said, 'What about Christina?'" he said.

(Writing by Tim Gaynor, editing by Greg McCune)
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  " Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."  - Daniel Moynihan
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« Reply #96 on: January 11, 2011, 09:23:51 PM »

As a christain and a baptist, I am thoroughly humiliated by Westboro church.  They are just extremists as any other radical terrorist religion.  They make a mockery of real christians.  I wish I could be there to help in the wall to keep those freaks out!  Lord have mercy, they are planning a protest in a childs funeral?  How disgusting!  God Bless all those bikers!

It is so good to hear of Gabby's improvement (though caucious), it's very encouraging.  And the story of the older couple, where the husband protected his life long love.  How heartbreaking, but inspirational.  This is all so tragic!

I'm not sure about the parents, as we really don't know the whole story.  But as a parent, I have to feel sympathy right now, as I couldn't imaging one of my children doing that.  Signs or not, you just don't want to believe that.  (Unlike the Anthonys, who have ALL the evidence in thier faces and remain in denial or obviously hiding something for their precious daughter)

Aaaarrgghh, these cases drive me nuts!
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« Reply #97 on: January 12, 2011, 10:33:34 AM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110112/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot  Interesting article about the family, and about the day of the shooting.
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« Reply #98 on: January 12, 2011, 11:47:12 AM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_congresswoman_shot_obama                President to be nation's consoler at memorial.  I hope that people will respect what he has to say, and not start ripping the speech apart right and left   
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« Reply #99 on: January 12, 2011, 12:00:27 PM »

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576075851892478080.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories           Postings of a very troubled mind
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