Speaking on camera for the first time since she was shot in the head in January, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords said she feels “pretty good,” in an excerpt of an ABC interview shown on Thursday.
Asked how she felt, Giffords answered, “Pretty good.” “It’s difficult,” she responded when journalist Diane Sawyer asked whether rehabilitation had been painful or hard.
Giffords spoke clearly and smiled broadly in the preview of a TV special to be broadcast on Monday.
Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, was shot at a public event for constituents in Tucson. Jared Lee Loughner has been charged in the shooting spree that killed six people and wounded 12.
Giffords has been in rehabilitation in Houston and had made few public appearances in the 10 months since she was wounded.
At a ceremony in Washington last month, Giffords awarded her husband, Navy Captain Mark Kelly, two medals to honor his 25 years of service with the Navy and NASA.
ABC said its special presentation will be broadcast in conjunction with the release on Nov. 15 of a memoir by the couple titled, “Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope.”
Reporting by JoAnne Allen; editing by Eric Beech
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