Natasha McShane flown home for further brain surgery

By: CATHY HAYES | Published Monday, July 12, 2010, 7:59 AM | Updated Monday, July 12, 2010, 8:01 AM

Natasha McShane has been flown home to Ireland to receive expert brain surgery closer to home. McShane, from Silverbridge, County Armagh, was beaten severely with a baseball bat on April 23.

She was then placed into an induced coma until the beginning of June due to brain swelling. It was thought that she might never walk or talk again but she is currently making a slow but steady recovery.

John D. Colbert, an attorney who took on Natasha McShane’s case pro-bono, has released a statement announcing that McShane has been released from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and has now been flown to Belfast.

This week doctors at a Belfast hospital will perform brain surgery on McShane, along with a Chicagoan surgeon, via a satellite link up.

Mary Margaret O’Connor, a volunteer at the Irish-American Heritage Center who met McShane and her family through fund-raising efforts. She said that McShane was cleared to fly last week.

McShane flew home to Belfast with her mother and a doctor on a private medical airplane last week.

Since waking from her induced coma McShane has relearned how to eat, drink and is working on walking and other physical movement.

The Irish student had been working toward a degree in association with the University of Illinois at Chicago. The University delivered her parchment to McShane’s bedside as she could not attend her graduation.

The people of Chicago have raised over $250,000 to help with McShane’s medical bills. They have pledged that they will continue to fundraise for her though she has gone home.

O’Connor, who is involved in fundraising for McShane said “I think that this young woman is going to walk off like she walked off the plane the day she came here…I think she's going to come back to Chicago. I really do because she loved Chicago.”

Heriberto Viramontes, 30, and Marcy Cruz, 25, have been indicted on 25 counts including the attempted murder and burglary of McShane and her friend Stacy Jurich. They have pled not guilty on all charges. Their case will be heard next month.