Zsa Zsa Gabor released from hospital after amputation

Ailing actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, who had most of her right leg amputated earlier this month, has made “a remarkable recovery” and has was released early from hospital, her publicist said yesterday.

The 93-year-old Hollywood legend had the operation due to an infection that, without treatment, would have killed her.

Ms Gabor “was released a week earlier than expected because doctors said she has made a remarkable recovery,” said her representative John Blanchette.

Doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Centre also told the family that Gabor “will remain wheelchair-bound for the rest of her life... there was no prospect she will ever walk again.”

Mr Blanchette added that it has been “a long, tough road since 2002 when she had an accident that originally disabled her. She has never been able to walk and her health has spiraled down. But she has kept her sense of humour and she’s a fighter. She always has been.”

The flamboyant star – who was read the last rites during a health scare last year – has been in hospital since just after the New Year due to the infection. Doctors decided they had no alternative but to remove her leg, as the infection had entered the bone.

“She would have died in a very short time because the infection was moving,” her husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt said shortly after his wife came round from surgery.

The Hungarian-born actress’s health has been deteriorating for a number of years. She was partly paralysed in a car crash in 2002, and suffered a stroke in 2005.

Last July she was hospitalised after she fell and broke her hip. She underwent hip replacement surgery but suffered more complications, including a blood clot for which she had more surgery.

During another hospital stay in August, she called in a priest to administer last rites, then left the hospital a day later insisting that she wanted to be back home in her posh Bel Air neighborhood.

Ms Gabor’s husband said after the amputation that his wife was not told about the amputation, and still doesn’t know – it was unclear if she had been made aware by the time of her release from hospital.