By Della Hasselle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords opened her eyes Wednesday for the first time since she was shot in the head during an assassination attempt in Arizona, according to several reports.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who had traveled to Arizona on Air Force One with President Barack Obama to visit her colleague and friend, was in the room when it happened, as were Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the New York Post reported.
"It was extraordinary," Gillibrand told CNN. "It was a miracle to witness."
Gillibrand, who had frequently gone on double-dates with Giffords and her husband, told reporters that she was "excited they were even having the chance of getting to visit her hospital room," she told the Post.
The real excitement, though, was what happened once she was inside the room.
As Gillibrand was talking about another night out, Wasserman Schultz invited Giffords to visit her New Hampshire vacation home in the summer, papers reported.
As they were talking, they could see Giffords struggle to look up at them.
"We knew she could hear and understand what we were saying. She finally opens her eyes and you could see she was like desperately trying to focus and it took enormous strength from her," Gillibrand told the Post.
"We're crying because we're witnessing something that we never imagined would happen in front of us."
Giffords' husband, thrilled, asked her to lift her thumb to indicate she could hear him — at which point she slowly lifted her whole left arm, grabbed his neck, and then proceeded to touch his wedding ring, according to reports.
She reached out "and is touching him and starts to really choke him like she was really trying to hug him," Gillibrand recounted to CNN, "and then the doctor was just so excited, he said, 'You don't understand ... this is amazing, what she is doing right now, and beyond our greatest hopes'."
Later, during a memorial service for the six people killed during the shooting, Obama gave the good news to a cheering crowd.
"She knows we are here, she knows we love her, and she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey," he said.
Obama and the other politicians had also gone to Arizona to attend memorials for those killed during the Arizona shooting, including the 9-year-old granddaughter of former Yankees and Mets manager Dallas Green, who was honored with the National 9/11 flag.
