INSIDE EDITION looks at the possible outcome of Gabrielle Giffords's brain injury and talks to others who have lived through similar situations.
ABC News's Bob Woodruff has unique insight into what it's like inside Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords's hospital room.
"In my situation, this was an absolute miracle, and I really hope to gods that here is a miracle as well. After you survive a hit like this, it just takes a lot longer to get back to your old way," says Woodruff.
Woodruff suffered a devastating brain injury exactly five years ago, when a roadside bomb detonated next to the tank carrying him in Iraq. The scan actually shows the shrapnel and rock that crushed his skull, leaving hundreds of fragments lodged in his brain. But he says Giffords is already in better shape than he was.
"I did not react at all when they tried to command me to move or speak. She is reacting, she is squeezing the hands," explained Woodruff.
When Woodruff regained consciousness more than a month after the explosion, the left side of his head was collapsed. Giffords injury is also to the left side of her brain.
"I didn't know the names of my children." Woodruff tells and warns Giffords's family that those cognitive problems often stick around.
It's a sentiment echoed by Mary Jo Buttafuoco, "You will never recover from a gun shot would, a gunshot wound is devistatating but you can learn to live with it."
Like Giffords, Buttafuoco was shot in the head. The shooter was her husband's mistress, so-called Long Island Lolita Amy Fisher. The right side of Buttafuoco's face was left permanently paralyzed. Now divorced and living in Las Vegas with her fiance, Mary Jo is the author of Getting It Through My Thick Skull. Buttafuoco spoke with INSIDE EDITION's Megan Alexander.
"What is ahead for representative Giffords?" Megan asked.
Buttafuoco replied, "She's in for a long road, but it sounds like she has the support of her family and that's the most important thing."
Woodruff agrees that the support of Giffords's family will mean the world to her recovery. The first thing that he responded to was the sound of his daughter's voice.
