Malala Yousafzai can make smooth recovery, say doctors

20 October The Guardian

Taliban bullet grazed Pakistani girl's brain but doctors say she is writing, has memory and has expressed gratitude for support Malala Yousafzai, the teenage girl flown to Britain for treatment after being shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan, has the potential to make "pretty much a full recovery", her doctors have said. She is able to stand with help and is writing notes, and although the bullet grazed her brain she has not shown "any deficit in terms of function", doctors at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham said on Friday.

She was "not out of the woods but is doing very well", said Dr Dave Rosser, medical director of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust. Malala, whose age was given as 15 by the hospital, and not 14 as previously reported, was shot 10 days ago on her school bus after promoting the education of girls and criticising Taliban militants. Initially treated by neurosurgeons at a Pakistani military hospital before being flown to the UK on Monday, she awoke from a medically induced coma on Tuesday afternoon and reportedly asked: "Which country am I in?" The bullet, fired at point-blank range, struck just above the back of the left eye, went down through the side of her jaw, damaging the skull and the jaw joint on the left side, went through the neck and lodged in the tissues above the shoulder blade.

Shock waves from the bullet shattered the thinnest bone of the skull and fragments were driven into the brain."The bullet grazed the edge of her brain," Rosser said. "Certainly if you're talking a couple of inches more central, then it's almost certainly an unsurvivable injury." Doctors say she has memory but they have not talked to her about the shooting. "From a lot of work we have done with our military casualties we know that reminding people of traumatic events at this stage increases the potential for psychological problems later, so we wouldn't do that," Rosser said.

He said Malala was aware of her surroundings, and though she couldn't talk because she had a tracheotomy tube, she had given permission for medical details to be revealed, and wanted to thank everyone for their support.