kennedy space center in florida. i'll be back with you at the top of the hour. sanjay gupta has a special report on saving gabrielle giffords. that's right now. what a beautiful day it was. a beautiful morning that turned so tragic. >> 911. what is your emergency? >> there was a shooting. >> we have breaking news for you. several people have been shot. among those shooting victims was congresswoman gabrielle giffords. >> he came up and asked if he could talk to her and then he was barging through. >> 15 to 20 gun shots. some people running and screaming. it was gabriel giffords. she is breathing.

she still has a us. >> 11 others also shot today, six people are dead. the victims were stuck behind the table set up for this event. so they were sitting ducks. >> investigators have the suspected shooter in custody. >> and there are other people that are injured. there are multiple people shot. >> okay. >> oh, my god. >> what police say is that shady looking gentleman was gerald loughner and the table that they're talking about is right over here. this is where he barged through. congresswoman and the judge were standing right around there and this is where he shot them. but then he proceeded down the line shooting people at random. by the time the paramedics got here, jared loughner had been taken down but there were literally bodies strewn all across the ground here. colt jackson, aaron rodgers, and wes magnota were among the first medical responders on the scene. >> we were actually at a gas station and we heard the call go out.

and we heard the trucks rolling by. we weren't sure of the full effect of what was going on. >> so you're looking out at this. we have some idea of what it must have looked like. but was it chaos? were the people running around? >> you know, there wasn't a lot of people running. there were a lot of bodies. a lot of people doing work. the first thing i noticed was a banner for gabriel giffords. in my mind i started recognizing this was a political event. there was not a lot of shouting. there wasn't a lot of pandemonium. and when we walked up, i remember smelling blood. >> you had bags with you and starting to cross over the tape now. and we're pulling our gurney in. we have our back board and supplies. and we see there are people working over here. and there's crews over here. and there's bodies laying around. and then all through here there are bodies. and there's quite a bit of blood on the ground. and about the time we get here, we see colt sitting in the back against the glass.

and there is a patient laying here that has a sheet over him. this person was deceased. we had to step over this person to get to the back in here with colt. i knelt down with colt and he looked up at me and he said this is gabby, gabby giffords. >> this is the first time i've been back since the shooting. it's different. definitely different. >> this is my first time as well. glad to talk with colt again and revisit it. i walked up and can you immediately see the scene in your mind. but -- >> flash back? >> sure. sure. not a traumatic flash back. but you remember. for me, the smell is the big thing. >> the smell of blood. >> sure. >> and what did you see? what are you looking for when you start to evaluate a patient? >> i asked her if she do hear me. she squeezed her hand. she was alert to that sense. >> she had been down 30 minutes. the medics faced a critical decision. >> we were instructed by person on scene to put her in a helicopter. we looked at each other. we didn't hear a helicopter or

see a helicopter. >> the rookie paramedics triageing gabby ultimately made that split second decision to just go. so what happened? so her head over here? >> that's right. colt was initiating an iv in her left arm. and we were continuing checking on her responsive level. we decided to start another iv. so that's when i came over to this area. just a frequent thing for us to do. and i stood here and during the entire transport i was working on this part of her body trying to get an iv established in her other arm. we had her on oxygen, constantly monitoring every minute or so. having her respond to us by squeezing our hands. >> i had her put her hand on my leg and squeeze my leg so she was still with us. >> our gentleman was going good

and we were focused on treating gabby. >> are you measuring blood pressure constantly? >> blood pressure, pulse, making sure she has pulses in all her extremities, not just her fingers. make sure she's got it all the way around. >> she was shot in the head. and to have any level of responsiveness at all i thought was amazing. and how quickly she responded to it. it wasn't here, squeeze my hand and then slowly did it. squeeze my hand and she would squeeze it right away. >> so it wasn't a reflex. >> yeah. it wasn't just something at random. it was always on command, always immediately. >> the entire time that she was going to the hospital, was she awake and alert? >> her eyes were closed, as far as alert, responsive to pain. more responsive than verbal. she wouldn't flinch if we poked her. and she would squeeze our hands if we asked her to. she had some swelling and her eyes were closed. we couldn't assess the level of responsiveness. but for the most part we could

see her kind of wincing in pain and moving. i don't know if anybody had told her she was shot. so i don't know if she knew the circumstances that she was involved in. not many people know this, between the two of us, there were less than two years of experience as a medic. >> did you feel completely prepared to do what you needed to do that day? >> i think so. >> 44 minutes after giffords was shot and 13 minutes after leaving the safeway parking lot, the medics arrived at the largest trauma center in tucson. up next, we're going inside the operating room with gabby's neurosurgeon. could he reverse the damage? >> it's very hard to tell what brain is going to come back online and what brain is damaged. it all looks pretty bad. >> unlike other parts of the body, the brain has no place to swell. and i'll take you inside my operating room to show you the surgery that gabby had, removing half of her skull. >> that bone right out of there.

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[ siren sounds ]

congresswoman gabrielle giffords is headed to the operating room. >> we brought the congresswoman out and go straight down this hallway here. >> she survived the initial gunshot wound to the head but was still in critical condition. the bullet was fired from a glock 19 .9 millimeter handgun. it traveled the entire length of her brain and exited the back. it was a focused wound, meaning the damage was concentrated to one area of the brain. a neurosurgeon was called in to continue the race to save gabby. what did they first tell you? when you first heard you're operating on someone that was shot in the head, how did they describe that to you? >> i didn't register. i was at a golf lesson for my oldest boy. we were in the pro shop afterwards. i got the call. i'm answering that call and also looking up at the tv.

>> breaking news for you coming out of tucson, arizona. several people have been shot. >> and right when he said the name, i saw the face. and i knew there was something terribly wrong. i immediately -- >> so you were talking and saw the face on tv. >> the weirdest thing. it is like a dissociation and click. it all came together. >> within 40 minutes of arriving at the hospital, gabby giffords was in the operating room. and the doctor was ready to operate. so she's obviously asleep now, breathing tube and all the necessary ivs. do you have a plan in your mind as you're walking in the operating room? you have an idea of what you want to accomplish? >> sure. the things that get you in trouble in this case is bleeding uncontrolably. so if that bullet cut a major artery, that's hard to clean up that kind of -- with that kind of trouble. and fortunately here that was not the case. and then of course the brain swelling we worry about. and, again, something we can't

really control but we can try and at least lessen the impact of and that's where we take off the bone fragment that's are there and maybe even a little bit more. that's where judgment comes in. >> it's a judgment call that trauma neurosurgeons are forced to make. a through and through bullet injury causes direct damage to the brain much it's the secondary damage due to swelling where you try to minimize the risk. the simple things they can do in the operating room, simply lifting the head of the bed up can reduce the swelling in the head. insert certain medications to shrink the brain. that can help as well. also, as they did in congressman giffords case, they can remove part of the bone here to decrease that swelling. so one thing to keep in mind the brain, unlike other organs of the body, if it starts to swell, it really has nowhere to go. it can only go down wards and that is called herniation. you make holes like that one and giving access to the brain here and one over here which is just

behind the eye. this is a pretty classic place where you make a hole and try to remove a large chunk of bone. that's the first part. and the second part is simply to try and connect the holes. you want to get as much bone off here as possible so that the brain has the maximum area to sort of swell. the drill is getting nice and hot. it looks a little bit barbaric, but the key is to protect the brain underneath as well. and this is the last cut now we're making. one of the things that's really important is when you take this bone out, you want to make sure that you're protecting the brain underneath. lift that bone right out of there. and this is the area where the

brain is actually allowed to swell. the brain is coming out of here. and this is key to reducing that swelling. and the last bit was just finding those areas of the brain that we are clear is no longer alive. usually where the bullet came in and out and just clean that up. try to lower the chance of infection. the key thing is you don't chase it into the brain. we don't try to get every little piece of bullet out. even if they might be a source for infection in the future because this might damage good brain. >> cause more harm than good. >> absolutely. >> i'm very, very pleased to hear the doctors report that she is still alive and fighting for her life. >> gabby never stopped fighting. and the progress she made just days after her surgery gave her doctors hope. >> i'm cautious. but i will tell you this. given her recent improvements, i'm as hopeful as i've ever been for any patient. >> that's a strong statement.

>> yes. >> nearly 95% of people shot in the head don't survive. but gabby giffords, she beat the odds. >> she'll smile at me. she'll do a couple things she'll only do around me like pat me on the face. she used to do that before. you know, just very gently. i can just look if her eyes and tell. >> the biggest challenge is really fighting through the frustration of a slow recovery at her own pace. i've been trying to brace everyone for that. because as you know, it's not up to us. it's outside of our hands now. my little moment in the sun was for the two hours in the operating room. that's where i had maximum impact. >> gabby's injured brain would need to heal. it would need to rewire. rehab. they talk about that being so important at this point. tell me about what -- is she getting rehab now? >> she's getting the rehab and and it's rudimentary rehab.

sitting at the side of the bed, dangling the legs. even that simple motion is to start the rehab process. but rehab itself, what we call the rehab hospital, that's an intensive experience. her his, astronaut, mark kelly, knew the road to recovery would be long. but to make gabby whole again, they would leave tucson. saving gabby giffords continues inside her aggressive rehab. that's next. so me and my lads p to san francisco twice as fast! we get double miles every time we use our card... i'll take these two... ...no matter what we're buying. ...and all of those. and since double miles add up fast, we can bring the whole gang! it's hard to beat double miles! whoa dude [ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one, money magazine's best rewards card if you aim to rack up airline miles. what's in your wallet?

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gabby's recovery would continue a long way from the tucson mountains. if it were the paramedics, nurses and doctors in tucson who were responsible for saving the congresswoman's life, it would be the doctors and staff at the

memorial hospital in houston that would be asked to restore function and put gabby back together again. ♪ twinkle, twinkle little star >> reporter: for an hour hour j about every day congressmwoman giffords does this. ♪ twinkle twinkle little star >> reporter: it's called music therapy and most people never see how it or much of the technology, big or small, actually works. so i will show you, as if i, like congresswoman giffords, were a patient of dr. francisco and his team. seems like a pretty long day. >> it is a long day. >> reporter: every patient here has suffered a catastrophic injury and gets tailored therapy. the site of the injury in the

brain is crucial. >> after a brain injury or a stroke, there is a tendency for the patient to forget one side of the body. >> just neglect it. >> just neglect it or even if they're not neglecting it, they're not using the weak side, they tend to forget how to use it. >> reporter: but this bike doesn't let you forget. >> you doing okay? >> yeah. >> want to go out further? >> sure, if you want to. these little cords are attached to my muscles in my leg. as my leg's moving it is sort of predicting which muscle shoulding using and giving that muscle stimulation. the brain usually sends a message to the muscle but now the muscle is also sending its own signal and that helps rewire the injured brain. this one over here they call the super man device. learning to walk without the burden of my own body weight. >> 30% of your body weight has been taken out. >> reporter: this is really for somebody who has been bedridden for a long time, maybe taking their first steps, to somebody

who has weakness and really needs to start walking for the first time. >> okay. you say len. it's pen. use your lips. >> reporter: now remember, with gabby, speech is also a concern. how significant is that in your world in the speech therapy world that she starts asking for things on her own? >> it's huge. that's one of your first goals is for somebody to be able to express their basic wants and nee needs. >> reporter: as congresswoman giffords' husband prepared for his final mission to space, her mission was to gain enough strength to travel to that launch. gabby's intensive, often grueling eight hours of rehab a day had built her up for this moment. look closely as the congresswoman who just months before was shot point-blank in the head slowly taking those remarkable steps. >> i credit mark for his extreme

optimism and his resolve. i wish every single patient had someone like that at their side. it's just positive energy, positive thoughts. i think people that nonverbal ways of communicating. i think he was really able to encourage her and very, very -- i'd say many different levels. >> do you spend much time reflecting on what happened in. january? >> briefly. fragments. not a lot. >> believe it or not, life actually has returned to some degree of normalcy here in tucson. >> reporter: but the tight-knit community of tucson will never forget the lives cut short that morning at the safeway. among the six killed in the attack, federal judge john ro rolle. the 6-year-old judge served the

legal system for nearly 40 years. he was father of three and had five grandchildren. also killed -- one of the staffers of congresswoman giffords. gabe zimmerman. 76-year-old darwin stoddard used his body to shield his wife who has wounded in the shooting. darwin did not survive. dorothy morris and fill nis schneck also died that day. the youngest victim, christina taylor green, born on 9/11, 2001. christina loved politics, which is why she was there that day. 14 others were injured in the shooting, including congresswoman giffords. >> all too often we forget and just as this case sort of proved, once it's sort of out of sight, out of mind, then people check back in, why isn't she already back in congress.

and i think it is a very important to temper those expectations. it is not that she's not going to improve, get better and be functional, it is that we have to let her take it at her own pace. >> is she going to be the same as she was before? i think she'll have permanent changes in thoughts, memories, feelings and emotions so we'll have to see how that pans out in the future. >> obviously she's a congresswoman, randy. will she be able to be a congresswoman again, speak spontaneously, address her constituents, all of that? >> i think that's -- has a lot dependent on her and her resolve and what, from i gather from her family and husband that i've met, she's certainly very resolute. >> there was a lot of excitement that she was doing so well early on but i kept on driving home the point this is a week, long, year-long recovery process. not even like recovering from a heart operation where you are up in a couple of weeks. i want to temper the

expectations. >> reporter: but giffords has defied the odds from the very beginning, giving signs to the medics, doctors, the nurses and the therapyists assigned to save gabby giffords. she has never stopped fighting. gabby can use her wheelchair, stand up on her own, she can even take small steps. she's learning to talk again as well. she says "i love you" to her husband and often tells her doctors "i miss tucson." you said doctor's worth sometimes is measured by their ability to predict the future. what do you say? >> well she's going to do pretty well. she's not going to be 100%. i know that for a fact. she has a scar in her head. she can have multiple scars on her. what you see on the outside is also reflective what have goes on inside underneath it as well. so while we cover it up, there is a lot of things that are permanently damaged that won't ever come back. but what she'll do is she'll adapt. an the human brain has such a capability of adapting that

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