Vegas victim wakes from coma, takes first steps

Tina Frost has spent more than two weeks fighting for her life.

The 27-year-old Maryland native had been one of the thousands attending the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 when a gunman suddenly opened fire from the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. In the end, 58 people died and more than 500 were wounded.

Frost was struck in the head. Her wounds were so severe that surgeons removed her right eye, where a bullet had lodged, and took out a forehead bone so Frost’s brain could have room to swell, according to updates on a GoFundMe account for the family. The day after the shooting, Frost remained in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator, unable to breathe on her own.

“Over the next few days, they’re going to see how she responds to simulation, but until then, we won’t know how bad the brain damage is,” Frost’s mother, Mary Moreland, wrote.

The odds of her recovering fully were slim, her doctor warned at first. Military surgeons who treated the shooting victims would later compare the wounds they treated to those seen in a war zone.

“Unfortunately, some people may not ever recover,” Keith Blum, a neurosurgeon at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, told CNN.

But Frost has continued to surprise everyone. A few days after the shooting, doctors dilated her left eye; the retina appeared normal. Frost also began coming off the ventilator, practising breathing on her own.

Her family documented “each win, however small” on the GoFundMe page:

Oct. 7: “Her kidneys and liver have started to work and are doing well.”

Oct 10: “Tina kicked her legs back and forth when asked, stopped when asked, and then kicked again when asked!”

Oct. 11: “Best news yet on our Tina! She followed nurse Christina’s commands when she told her to squeeze her hands and move her toes.”

But on Friday, Frost delivered perhaps the biggest surprise to family and friends when she woke up and, with the help of nurses, walked for the first time since she was shot. She took six steps in all: three steps to a chair and three steps back to the hospital bed.

“She’s obviously anxious to get her wobble back on,” her family wrote on the GoFundMe page. “We are so proud of our Tina, and everyone is amazed at every single movement she makes.”

Her doctors are discussing moving Frost to another hospital for her short- and longterm recovery, the post said. Blum, the neurosurgeon, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that Frost’s survival was “miraculous.”