This article comes from an unknown source shortly before Tupac was declared dead.
Rap star Tupac Shakur's condition has improved slightly, officials said, and doctors have given him a better prognosis for survival. Shakur was shot by an unknown assailant Saturday night after leaving the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon boxing match at the MGM Grand.
Marion "Suge" Knight, chairman of Los Angeles-based Death Row Records, was driving Shakur on East Flamingo Road when a gunman pulled up along side them and emptied a semiautomatic pistol into the passenger side. Shakur was hit four times in the chest and abdomen. Police believe he was the target.
Shakur, 25, was still in critical condition today at University Medical Center, but the head of the hospital's trauma unit said he had passed one critical phase. Doctors treating the rapper did not return telephone calls.
Dr. John Fildes, medical director of UMC's trauma unit, gave a general observation on Shakur's chances of survival.
"Overall, all comers with a gunshot wound in the chest that passes through the blood vessels connecting the heart and lungs, only one in five survive," Fildes said. "The majority die in the first 24 to 48 hours, from shock and bleeding. ..."
Fildes said patients with wounds similar to Shakur's also "die during the second major risk period, after five or seven days, when difficulties in oxygenation or the presence of infections or other complications arise."
It's been six days since Shakur was shot. He underwent surgery twice on Sunday and once on Monday, and his right lung was removed
