Phoenix Officer Shot in Head Released From Hospital

Phoenix Police Officer Tyler Moldovan was released from the hospital Monday more than a month after being shot up to eight times, the police department told KTAR NEWS . He had been hospitalized in critical condition since Dec. 14.

“Officer Moldovan was transported to an undisclosed medical facility where he will receive rehabilitation for injuries received in the line of duty,” the Phoenix Police Department said in an online post.

Officer Moldovan, according to earlier reports, was shot as police searched for a man seen running from a car that reportedly had been driven erratically a short time earlier. A police probable-cause statement stated that Moldovan, 22, was shot multiple times, including once in the head, FOX10 reported . The probable-cause statement also stated that police recovered the handgun used to shoot Moldovan and also found a second handgun in a patio where the suspect had been hiding.

Doctors say gunshot wounds to the head often turn fatal, but there are rare occasions when that is not the case.

Dr. Frank LoVecchio, emergency room physician for Valleywise Health explained, "People do survive gunshot wounds to the head … going through the skull, things we look for are, what degree of brain damage on a CT scan, most importantly how the patient looks. But, people do survive gunshot wounds to the head."