Rep. Giffords can breathe on her own

TUCSON, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is being kept on a ventilator at a Tucson hospital even though she is able to breathe on her own, doctors said.

Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., the neurosurgeon who operated on Giffords, D-Ariz., after she was shot Saturday, said the breathing machine helps her recover, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Giffords, wounded in a gunman's attack at a political event, remained in critical condition in intensive care at the University Medical Center.

Dr. Peter Rhee, director of the trauma center at the hospital, said the congresswoman has been responding to some commands and gave medical staffers a thumbs-up sign.

"I'm very encouraged by the fact that she's done so well. ... She has no right to look this good, and she does," Lemole said in an NPR report Tuesday.

Doctors cautioned that the congresswoman faces a long struggle to recover.

Six people were killed in the shootings, which broke out at a Giffords "meet-and-greet" event with constituents. Giffords and 13 others were injured. A 22-year-old man, Jared Lee Loughner, was arrested.

Giffords was hit by a bullet that traveled through the left side of her brain from back to front. Her doctors say the injury would have been more severe if the slug had gone through both hemispheres of her brain.

Lemole said it is difficult to predict the course of Giffords' recovery.

"She is on her own schedule," he said.