By Brad Poole
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Friday ended a 13-day hospitalization in Arizona for a gunshot wound to the head and was flown by jet to Texas to start the next phase of her recovery.
Scores of well-wishers, some with "Get Well Gabby" signs and American flags, lined the streets near Tucson's University Medical Centre to wave and applaud as Giffords was driven by ambulance from the hospital in a police-led motorcade.
The 40-year-old congresswoman arrived at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson a short time later and was put aboard a twin-engine jet outfitted as an air ambulance. It took off bound for Houston.
She was joined in the flight to Texas by her husband, NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, her mother and a surgeon.
Once she arrives in Houston, she is due to be flown by helicopter to TIRR Memorial Hermann Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, which specializes in the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries.
Giffords suffered a gunshot wound to the head at point-blank range on January 8, but doctors have described her progress as nothing short of a miracle.
At a news conference on Thursday, doctors said the congresswoman had come a long way in a short time given the severity of her injury.
"She is beginning to stand with assistance, she is scrolling through an iPad -- these are all fantastic advances for her. They do show higher cognitive function," Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurology at the hospital, told reporters.
Giffords was shot through the head when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of the congresswoman's constituents gathered to meet her outside a Tucson supermarket. Six bystanders including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl were killed, and 13 others were wounded, Giffords among them.
A 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, is charged with the shooting.
The shootings sparked a national debate about whether vitriolic political discourse was encouraging violence against politicians and whether stricter gun-control measures should be adopted in the United States.
(Writing by Steve Gorman; additional reporting by Tim Gaynor in Phoenix; Editing by Will Dunham)
