MALALA YOUSUFZAI, the teenager shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan, has been able to stand with assistance and write, her hospital in England disclosed yesterday.
However, she is “not out of the woods”, doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham said yesterday.
Dave Rosser, the medical director of the hospital, said 14-year-old Malala appeared to have memory recall despite her brain injuries.
“It’s clear that she’s not out of the woods yet,” said Dr Rosser, adding that she had sustained a “very very grave injury” but she was “doing very well”.
“In fact she was standing with some help for the first time this morning. She’s communicating very freely, writing,” he said.
Her medical team said the teenager was not able to speak, though, because she had undergone a tracheostomy so that she could breathe through a tube in her neck.
This operation was performed because her airways had been swollen by the bullet, said Dr Rosser.
“She is not able to talk, although we have no good reason to think that she wouldn’t be able to talk once this tube is out, which may be in the next few days ... Malala was struck just above the back of the left eye.
“The bullet went down through the side of her jaw, damaging the skull and the jaw joint on the left hand side ... went through the neck and lodged in the tissues above the shoulder blade.
“The bullet grazed the edge of her brain. Certainly if you’re talking a couple of inches more central, then it’s almost certainly an unsurvivable injury.”
Dr Rosser added: “Malala is keen that I thank people for their support and their interest because she is obviously aware of the amount of interest and support this has generated around the world.”
The bullet to her head, which was removed by surgeons in Pakistan, hit her left brow but, instead of penetrating her skull, travelled underneath the skin along the whole length of the side of her head and into her neck.
Shockwaves caused by the bullet are thought to have shattered the thinnest part of Malala’s skull, driving fragments into her brain.
A titanium plate or a piece of her own bone may be used to perform the reconstructive surgery, which will not take place until after a period of rehabilitation and that could take weeks or even months.
Malala, who was attacked for vocally opposing the Taliban, was flown from Pakistan to Birmingham to receive treatment after the attack earlier this month, which drew widespread international condemnation.
She has become a potent symbol of resistance to the radical Islamist group’s effort to deny women an education and other rights.
She was shot her in the head and neck as she left school in Swat, northwest of Islamabad. The Taliban have said they attacked her because she spoke out against the group and praised US president Barack Obama.
In his latest briefing on the schoolgirl’s condition, Dr Rosser said she had the potential to make “pretty much a full recovery” but may not undergo reconstructive surgery for at least two weeks.
He added: “It’s a very difficult position for her, clearly, because she has gone from being on a school bus and the next thing she will be consciously aware of is being in a strange hospital in a different country.”
In Pakistan, meanwhile, security forces have detained the family of a man accused of attacking Malala. The authorities in the Swat Valley said they were still searching for the man who shot Malala and wounded two other girls on a school bus. The suspect has been identified as a member of the Pakistani Taliban named Attaullah. The authorities are seeking an accomplice as well.
One senior provincial official said Attaullah had been arrested before, on suspicion of militant activity during a military operation in 2009 in Swat, but was freed because of a lack of evidence. “Then we got to know that he was back in Swat and was planning some mischief,”the official said. – (Reuters/Press Association)