Gabrielle Giffords ‘Did Not Look Sick’ in First Public Appearance Since Injury

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
“She did not look sick at all,” an ABC reporter said of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who made her first appearance at a public event today after having been shot in the head nearly seven months ago in Tuscon.
Although there were no television cameras on site at Space Center Houston, where Giffords’s husband Mark Kelly and the other Space Shuttle Endeavour astronauts were being honored, ABC did have Gina Sunseri on the scene.
According to Sunseri, Giffords, who was dressed casually in jeans and sneakers, sat in a wheelchair most of the time, but stood to hug and kiss her husband as he received his Spaceflight Medal for returning safely from his recent mission. “She was in a wheelchair but she was very animated, she was smiling, she was chatting with people next to her,” the reporter noted.
Giffords, who received a standing ovation from the hundreds of guests in attendance at the ceremony as she was wheeled in, has been staying in Houston for continued rehabilitation following her release from an area hospital earlier this month.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
