Congressional friends' visit roused Giffords: doctors

TUCSON (Reuters) - The familiarity of a visit by close friends from Congress may have prompted Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to open her eyes for the first time since she was shot, a doctor treating her said on Thursday, adding that it was an important sign in her recovery.

Giffords was shot through the head by a gunman who sprayed a meeting with pistol fire in Tucson on Saturday, killing six people including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl whose funeral is to be held later Thursday.

Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand were talking to their wounded colleague in her hospital room shortly after President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, visited during a trip to Tucson for a memorial address late on Wednesday.

"She was surrounded by her friends from the Congress and Senate, and I think it was a combination perhaps of the unexpected and the familiar that really prompted her to open her eyes and look around," Dr. Michael Lemole told a news conference at the University Medical Center in Tucson, adding that it was an important sign in her continuing recovery.

"That's important ... it implies that not just those parts of the brain that process commands are there -- but the arousal center -- those are starting to work spontaneously, she is becoming aware of her surroundings," said Lemole, who is chief of neurosurgery.

Trauma surgeon Dr Peter Rhee told reporters Giffords opened her eyes for 10-15 minutes on Thursday. She had also received physical therapy, and was "dangled" from her hospital bed on Wednesday.

The next "milestone" in her recovery will be removal of a breathing tube, Rhee and Lemole said, adding that a decision would be taken in coming days.

"The last piece is, 'what is their verbalization?'" Lemole told reporters. "We can't assess that with a breathing tube, that's the next step."

'STAYING ALIVE'

Giffords was shot once through the back of the head at a meeting with constituents outside a Tucson Safeway store on Saturday.

Jared Lee Loughner, a 22-year-old college dropout, made his first court appearance on Monday on five federal charges, including the attempted assassination of Giffords.

The shooting has galvanized public and media attention, and turned the medical team into unlikely, if occasionally quirky, celebrities.

During the news conference Thursday, Rhee's cellphone rang unexpectedly to the tone of the Bee Gees classic hit "Staying Alive," releasing a wave of welcome laughter from reporters covering the usually grim story.

Rhee and other staff at the University Medical Center were greeted with cheers and applause when they joined Obama and other dignitaries at a memorial for the shooting victims in a packed sports stadium in Tucson late on Wednesday.

"It was crazy ... humbling," Rhee said of his new-found celebrity, adding that it would not distract him or the rest of the team from their work as doctors.

"We do this every day, week-in, week-out, and its nice to know that there's... this kind of outpouring. But it doesn't change what we do."

"If you were injured, we would do the same for you. It's why we got into medicine."

(Editing by Jerry Norton)