Tragic Details About Mark Kelly's Wife, Gabby Giffords

Gabby Giffords nearly lost her life in January 2011. While the then-Arizona Representative was having a meeting with her constituents in a supermarket parking lot, in Tucson, a man shot her in the head and then opened fire on the crowd. While Giffords was critically wounded in the shooting, six others were killed, and 13 left injured. In the immediate aftermath of the shocking incident, Daniel Hernandez Jr., a then-20-year-old intern who had only been working for the Democratic politician for five days, tended to her and arguably saved her life. During an appearance on "Today," Hernandez Jr. explained that he simply tapped into the knowledge he had gained from a certified nursing assistant course he took in high school to care for Giffords until the ambulance arrived. Then, the staffer took on a different role and comforted her emotionally on the ride to the hospital too. 

According to Vanity Fair, the bullet shattered part of Giffords' skull and may have even claimed her life if it had veered into the right side of her brain. Even so, doctors believed that her severe injuries made for a dire prognosis and placed the politician in a medically-induced coma, providing no certain answer when or if she would ever wake up. In those scary days, Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, a few of her dearest friends from the government, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat by her bedside. Just six days later, Giffords awoke from the coma and gave her husband a small thumbs-up to let him know she could hear him. In the following months, the former congresswoman endured a grueling road to recovery.

As Vanity Fair reported at the time, Gabby Giffords developed a speech disorder called aphasia in the aftermath of the horrific parking lot shooting. Once Mark Kelly's longtime wife awoke from her medically induced coma, she wasn't able to speak for nearly a month. Even though the flow of Giffords' speech remained affected after a year of challenging speech therapy, she wasn't deterred. In fact, the former Arizona representative even went back to Congress in August 2011 to vote on a debt ceiling bill and was greeted with booming applause. Additionally, in November 2012, Gifford attended the hearing of the man who had shot her. While the politician looked on, her husband told the gunman that she was "done thinking about you," per ABC News. The astronaut later added, "You may have put a bullet through her head, but you haven't put a dent in her spirit."

And that was undoubtedly the case as Giffords continued to persevere with her speech therapy, despite the many setbacks and frustrations along the way. By November 2024, the Democrat was able to give a speech at a rally for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. As Giffords confessed, "I've known the darkest of days. Days of pain and uncertainty of recovery," (via Instagram). "But confronted by despair, I've summoned home. Confronted by paralysis and aphasia, I responded with grit and determination." The gun violence prevention advocate then shared that she had only regained her speech by re-learning how to speak word by word. Luckily, the shooting only strengthened Giffords and Kelly's marriage.