Dr. David Rosser, the medical director of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, said the teenager, Malala Yousafzai, could not yet speak but that the facility was trying to arrange for her to listen to her father by telephone.
“It’s clear that Malala is not out of the woods yet,” he told reporters outside of the hospital. “Having said that, she is doing very well. In fact, she was standing with some help for the first time this morning when I went in to see her.”
Dr. Rosser also said that while Ms. Yousafzai had the “potential” for a full recovery there was “some damage to the brain, certainly physical,” although there was “no deficit in terms of function.”
Dr. Rosser said Ms. Yousafzai was “communicating very freely, she is writing,” but was not yet able to speak because of a tracheotomy tube in her throat. “Her airway was swollen by the passing of the bullet,” he said.
“She is not able to talk, although we have no good reason to think that she wouldn’t be able to talk once this tube is out, which may be in the next few days.”
“She seems able to understand. She’s got motor control, she’s able to write,” he said. “Whether there’s any subtle intellectual or memory deficits down the line is too early to say,” he added, noting that her memory leapt from being on the bus in her native Pakistan where she was shot to waking in a different country.
Dr. Rosser said Ms. Yousafzai had the potential to make “pretty much a full recovery” but may not undergo reconstructive surgery for at least two weeks.
“Malala is still showing some signs of infection which is probably related to the bullet track, which is our key source of concern,” he said. Tracing the path of the bullet that struck her for the first time, Dr. Rosser said, “Malala was struck just above the back of the left eye. The bullet went down through the side of her jaw, damaging the skull and the jaw joint on the left hand side,” he said. It then “went through the neck and lodged in the tissues above the shoulder blade.”
“The bullet grazed the edge of her brain. Certainly, if you’re talking a couple of inches more central, then it’s almost certainly an unsurvivable injury,” he said.
Ms. Yousafzai, 14, was shot on Oct. 9 in Pakistan's Swat Valley. She had become an icon of resistance against the Taliban, advocating that girls have access to education. Her case has generated widespread interest among the local and international media, as well as among public officials and complete strangers worldwide offering to help her.
The Taliban has reportedly vowed to continue to try to kill Ms. Yousafzai, who was flown to the hospital in central England this week for specialized treatment. Her case has also heightened awareness of security at the hospital.
The British police said on Tuesday that they questioned and turned away two people who tried to visit Ms. Yousafzai but that there had never been any threat related to that episode.
In Pakistan, security forces have detained relatives of a man accused of attacking Ms. Yousafzai, neighbors of the man’s family said Thursday. The authorities in the Swat Valley have said they were still searching for the man who shot Ms. Yousafzai and wounded two other girls on a school bus. The suspect has been identified as a member of the Pakistani Taliban named Attaullah, and the authorities are seeking an accomplice as well.
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