US gun-culture, wars helped shot lawmaker
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WASHINGTON — America’s gun-culture and overseas wars may ironically have helped surgeons hone some of the techniques they used to save the life of US lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords after she was shot in the head.
“Wars are — I wouldn’t use the term necessary evils, but there’s no question that they have taught us how to treat people who have been shot in the head,” Dr Anders Cohen, chief of neurosurgery at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, told AFP.
“If we’re hurting people on a massive schedule, then I guess we have to figure out ways to patch them up,” he said.
Six persons died, including a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge, and 14 were wounded when 22-year-old Jared Loughner allegedly fired 31 rounds from a semi-automatic Glock pistol at a public meeting Saturday in Tucson, Arizona.
Doctors in Arizona said they had removed a part of Congresswoman Giffords’s skull to reduce swelling after she was shot point-blank in the head..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110113com6.html
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