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The Schmooze

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

“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.

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