Doctor not offended by Berlusconi

L'AQUILA, Italy, April 14 (UPI) -- A doctor in Italy's Abruzzo earthquake zone said she wasn't offended when the prime minister told her, "I wouldn't mind being resuscitated by you."

Dr. Fabiola Carrieri, a specialist in intensive care who is working in an Abruzzo field hospital, said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi merely paid her a "gallant" compliment to "take the drama out of the situation," The Times of London reported Tuesday.

Berlusconi had been "trying to raise a smile in the middle of all the sorrow we have all around us," Carrieri said.

The prime minister previously raised controversy when he said displaced people living in tent cities should think of it as a camping holiday. He later said the comment was an attempt to cheer up those affected by last week's earthquake and its more than 10,000 aftershocks.