Pakistani Girl Shot by Taliban Communicating, Standing Up
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ABC News(BIRMINGHAM, England) — The 15-year-old Pakistani girl, who was targeted and nearly killed by the Taliban last week for supporting education for girls, has stood up for the first time since the shooting.
Dr. Dave Rosser of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, where Malala Yousufzai is being treated, said on Friday that “she’s doing very well. In fact she was standing with some help for the first time this morning.”
The girl was transported to the hospital in an air ambulance donated by the United Arab Emirates on Monday.
Rosser said that while Yousufzai is not able to talk because of a Tracheotomy, she is still communicating.
“She’s communicating very freely. She’s writing. She has a tracheotomy tube in because her airway was swollen by the passing of the bullet. So in order to protect her airway she had a tracheotomy tube and so she’s not able to talk,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean Yousufzai won’t speak soon.
“We have no reason to believe she wouldn’t be able to talk once this tube is out,” he said.
While Yousufzai has made considerable progress, she still has a way to go in her recovery.
“It’s clear that she’s not out of the woods yet,” Rosser said.
Yousufzai was shot in the head last Tuesday while on her way home from school in Mingora, triggering an unprecedented wave of condemnation of the Taliban. The assailant reportedly approached her school bus and asked those on board to identify the young girl. He then shot her and two classmates before fleeing.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio