Critically injured terror victim open eyes, asks for her mother

Hours after surviving a drive-by shooting, an emergency C-section and life-saving operation for an abdominal wound, Shira Ish-ran briefly opened her eyes.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Terror victims parent's Liora and Chaim Silberstein update reporters on their daughter's condition. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Terror victims parent's Liora and Chaim Silberstein update reporters on their daughter's condition.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Hours after surviving a drive-by shooting, an emergency C-section and life-saving operation for an abdominal wound, Shira Ish-ran briefly opened her eyes.
“Today she woke up and asked for me,” her tear-stricken mother Liora Silberstein said on Monday evening, as she recalled that emotional moment for The Jerusalem Post.
“Obviously, I came running,” Liora said. “She held my hand and she squeezed it.”
She sat in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center with her husband, Chaim, and recalled for reporters the harrowing 24-hours her family had undergone, after learning that their daughter and her husband, Amichai, were among seven victims of a drive-by shooting attack outside the Ofra settlement.
On Monday, Shira’s premature son remained in critical condition in a touch-and-go situation, while Amichai, who was wounded in the leg, was in moderate condition.
“It was a nightmare coming true,” she recalled. “You know how you are always on the other side hearing about terrorist attacks, it is always happening to someone else? I was just having a regular evening, I was working at home and my husband came in and said there had been a terrorist attack and we had to go to the hospital. I took my telephone and my siddur [prayer book] and we just ran out of the house.”
Once they were in the car, her husband told her that Amichai had called them from the ambulance to tell them about the shooting. Shira and Amichai had only been married for nine months. They were at the Ofra bus stop as part of their journey from Jerusalem to their home in Elon Moreh.
The journey to the hospital was surreal, said Liora, particularly the part where they passed police cars heading to the scene of the attack.
When they got to the hospital, “we were told that our daughter was in a difficult situation, that she was shot in her lower abdomen, that they were going to have to do a C-section and take the baby out – and she was only at 30 weeks.”
Twenty people participated in the surgery, which took from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., said Liora, who explained that she passed the time by praying and reciting Psalms in hopes of a miracle.
There was a brief scare in the middle of the operation, where it seemed like they might lose their daughter, but then the doctors were able to right the situation.
For an hour-and-a-half, Liora said, she believed she could lose her, but miraculously, the bullet missed all her major organs and her daughter survived the surgery.
In the operation’s aftermath, Liora said, the doctors have kept her unconscious to spare her the pain of the tubes that she is attached to and to assist her in the recovery process. Doctors lowered the anesthesia’s dosage on Monday so that Shira could briefly wake up.
“I don’t know how much she understands of what is going on, she is obviously very confused,” said Liora. “We just keep praying for her recovery and the recovery of her baby. They will need a lot of prayers. He was born in the 30th week and she lost a lot of blood – this little family needs a lot of strength in the next few weeks and months.”