Injured US Congresswoman to be moved to new medical facility

HOUSTON: Critically injured US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords will be moved to Houston on Friday at a facility that specialises in brain injuries, as she nears her transition from recovery to rehabilitation 11 days after being shot through the head.
This is another milestone in her recovery after a gunman fired a bullet through her brain in an attack 11 days back.Giffords will be transported to The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research at Houston's Memorial Hermann hospital, a facility that specializes in brain injuries, ABC affiliate new channel confirmed today.
Giffords' mother told friends and family yesterday that the congresswoman was showing "higher levels of comprehension and complex actions," even flipping through photos on her husband's iPhone, according to an e-mail message obtained by the New York Times.
Giffords's Astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, is also in training at the Johnson Space Center, so the move also makes sense in that regard.
Security will no doubt be tight wherever Giffords is taken, but wherever it is should prepare for TV reporters to be outside doing stand-ups throughout the day, at least for a while.
And it wouldn't be surprising if helicopters followed the ambulance as she is transported from the airport (Ellington) to the facility Friday, given the intense interest in the case.
In an one on one interview with ABC News that aired Tuesday night, astronaut Capt. Mark Kelly opened up about his wife Gabrielle Giffords' recovery and the shooting that injured her and killed six people.
Kelly, who has been photographed by his wife's hospital bed holding her hand, said there is a habit of hers that has convinced him that she recognizes him.
"If I hold her hand, she'll play with my wedding ring," he said.
"She'll move it up and down my finger. She'll take it off. She'll put it on her own finger. She'll move it to her thumb. And then she can put it back on my finger.
"The reason why I know that that means she recognizes me is because she's done that before. She'll do that if we're sitting in a restaurant. She'll do the same exact movements," he said.
Kelly was struck by Giffords' progress again when "she stuck her hand up on the side of my face" and began giving him a neck massage.
"She spent 10 minutes rubbing my neck and I keep telling her, 'Gabby, you're in the ICU. You know, you don't need to be doing this," he said with a chuckle.
Kelly added, "I'm pretty sure she wouldn't do that to somebody else. And she's looking me in the eye."
Nevertheless, he is still unsure about the extent of her eventual recovery. "At times I'm 100 percent confident that she's going to make a 100 percent recovery," he told Sawyer. "And, you know, at other times I don't know."