Malala ‘very ill’ but able to stand

Malala Yousafzai has stood up with help for the first time but remains seriously ill, doctors treating her at a British hospital said Friday. She is unable to talk due to the breathing tube inserted into her windpipe but she can communicate by writing, said Dave Rosser, the medical director at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central England. The teenager escaped certain death by a matter of centimetres (inches), with the bullet grazing the edge of her brain, he revealed.
Though Malala has the potential to make “pretty much a full recovery”, Rosser warned that she is “not out of the woods yet” — her doctors’ chief concern being an infection in the bullet track through her head. The hospital released a first picture of Malala, in her hospital bed, clutching a teddy bear. “Malala is still showing some signs of infection… in the bullet track which is our key source of concern,” Rosser told reporters outside the hospital. “It’s clear that she is not out of the woods yet. “Having said that, she is doing very well. In fact, she was standing with some help for the first time this morning when I went in to see her.” He explained that Malala’s airway became swollen after the bullet passed through it, so doctors inserted a tracheotomy tube to protect it. The tube means she cannot speak but there is no reason to believe she would be unable to talk once it is removed, which may happen in the coming days. She has movement in her arms and legs and is “communicating very freely — she is writing,” Rosser said. “Malala is keen that I thank people for their support,” he added, after thousands of people left messages for her on the hospital’s website. With the schoolgirl’s permission, the hospital gave a full breakdown of her injuries, condition and the slow path to her possible recovery. Rosser explained how the bullet passed through the face of the girl, who the hospital now say is 15 although she has previously been described as 14. “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,” he said. Shot at point blank range, the bullet hit her left brow, but instead of penetrating her skull it travelled beneath the skin down the left side of her head.