Estefan in high spirits after back surgery

NEW YORK - Doctors moved singer Gloria Estefan out of intensive care Friday and a spokeswoman said she was in excellent condition after surgery to fix her back.

"She's excellent ... feels well and is not in a lot of pain, said Mary Costello, a spokeswoman for the Hospital for Joint Diseases.

Costello said the 32-year-old lead singer for the Miami Sound Machine had been kept in intensive care as a precaution and was being moved back to a private room.

Surgeons operated on the singer for almost 3 1/2 hours Thursday, implanting steel rods in her back, which was broken in a highway accident in Pennsylvania. She was expected to remain in the hospital for 10 days.

Costello praised Estefan for her unflagging spirit and her concern for other patients in the hospital. Estefan kept two dozen white roses and asked that the dozen of other floral arrangements and other gifts from fans be shared with fellow patients.

"Even when she's not feeling well, she's thinking of other patients," Costello said.

Estefan was expected to need six months of recovery and therapy, which could take place in New York or in her Miami home.

Following Thursday's surgery, Dr. Michael Neuwirth, one of two surgeons who performed the operation, said, "I have every expectation she will make a normal recovery" with no complications.

Estefan's husband, Emilio, 37, stood by as doctors described the operation.

"We're lucky she's able to walk. I don't care if she can't dance again," he said in a low monotone, gesturing with a hand bandaged from his own injuries, suffered Tuesday when a tractor-trailer rig hit the singer's tour bus on snowy Interstate 380 in the Pocono Mountains in Tobyhanna, Pa.

"It's just lucky she's alive and that nothing happened to the baby," he said, referring to the couple's son, Nayib, 9, who suffered a broken collar bone.

Hospital authorities said the facility had been flooded with flowers, balloons, T-shirts, and phone calls from around the world.

Neuwirth said he and the other surgeon, John Sherman, had implanted two steel rods on the back of Estefan's spinal cord.

© United Press International 1990

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