Malala Yousafzai, the teenage girl flown to Britain for treatment after being shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in Pakistan, has the potential to make "pretty much a full recovery", her doctors have said. She was "not out of the woods but is doing very well", said Dr Dave Rosser, medical director of the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS foundation trust.
The bullet, fired at point-blank range, struck just above the back of the left eye, went down through the side of her jaw, damaging the skull and the jaw joint on the left side, went through the neck and lodged in the tissues above the shoulder blade. Shock waves from the bullet shattered the thinnest bone of the skull and fragments were driven into the brain.
"The bullet grazed the edge of her brain," Rosser said. "Certainly if you're talking a couple of inches more central, then it's almost certainly an unsurvivable injury." Doctors say she has memory but they have not talked to her about the shooting. "From a lot of work we have done with our military casualties we know that reminding people of traumatic events at this stage increases the potential for psychological problems later, so we wouldn't do that," Rosser said.
"She is keen that people share the details. She is also keen that I thank people for their support and their interest. She is obviously aware of the amount of support and interest this has generated around the world. She is keen to thank people for that," Rosser said.
Malala was shot along with two classmates as they made their way home from school in north-west Pakistan, in what the foreign secretary, William Hague, described as a "barbaric attack".
Malala Yousafzai can make smooth recovery, doctors say | World news | guardian.co.uk