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| Miracle teen ... Abigail Kopf, 14, who was shot in the head during a deadly shooting rampage has now left her rehabilitation centre. Picture: Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital. |
The “miracle” US teenager mistakenly declared dead after she was shot in the head during a gunman’s rampage exactly two months ago has returned home from the hospital — defying the odds, her doctors said.
Abigail Kopf, 14, made “significant strides” during her six weeks of intensive inpatient therapy, according to the Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital, which chronicled her journey in a video posted to YouTube, reports NBC News.
Abigail Kopf Graduates from Mary Free Bed
Kopf was believed brain dead immediately after the shooting.
She was struck by gunman Jason Brian Dalton, who police say randomly roamed Kalamazoo on February 20 looking for targets. She was one of two people injured. Another six people were killed.
Dalton, a 45-year-old Uber driver, remains jailed in the spree and faces charges of murder, assault with intent to commit murder and felony firearm use in connection with a mass shooting. Police collected more than 40 shell casings across three scenes.
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| Physical therapist Joe Winegar (left with Abigail) said in the YouTube video: “We’re trying to get her so she can go to school and can help mum and dad in the house.” Picture: Mary Free Bed Rehabiliation hospital.Source:Supplied |
Kopf’s mother applauded her daughter’s perseverance in the face of near-death.
She said: “She’s an amazing kid — especially when you’re told that she might be brain dead or she might not make it.
“To see her walking and talking and doing therapy the way she is — it’s amazing.”
Speaking on the YouTube video, father Gene Kopf said: “It was bad luck that it happened, but it was good luck that it happened near a trauma centre, it was good luck that it was cold that night, it was good luck that she was found quickly and that the bullet took the path that it did.
Some of it is sheer dumb luck but a lot of it is skill on the medical field.”
File photo ... Abigail Kopf poses for a photo before the shooting incident. Picture: AP.Source:AP
He also spoke out about America’s “gun violence epidemic” and said that something ‘must be done’ about a problem that ‘no other developed country has.
She is just one of many victims that suffer every day ... where does it stop?”
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