Woman gets shot, then makes brew

[Melchior]

The reason this woman will likely be fine is brain plasticity, and a great book to read on the subject is Phantoms in the Brain by Dr. Ramachandran.

As others said, the brain has a great capacity to reorganize. Not only are new brain cells generated all throughout your life in the hippocampus but in the case of a stroke or injury to some part of it, neighboring brain regions will often take control. This is why, for example, people who're blind from birth often have greater than average sensitivity or skill with one of the other senses. It's also why people with phantom limbs experience feel as if you're touching their missing limb when you touch another part of their body, like their cheek.

This is excessively optimistic; first of all, while it's true that there is some mitotic capability left in neurons, it's not quantitatively relevant, as far as is currently known. Also, the brain has limited, slow and generally faulty ability to gradually reroute some pathways and, while this is a grand organizational feat, given how complex the whole structure is, it does not reattach divided hemispheres or allow anything resembling original functionality following most serious lesions (i.e. the neglect syndrome, that thanks to to cortical plasticity gets slightly better in time).
EDIT: And the phantom limb/referred pain phenomenon isn't very physiologically related to cortical plasticity, actually.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I seem to recall cases like this popping up from time to time. it's just a fluke. mind you the woman's behaviour after such an incident is rather strange....

[tim31]

In summary, using the information available at the time there was no reason for any of the six scientists to believe an eruption was as imminent as it was. The party Williams was leading was not a bunch of ignoramuses but leading experts in the field who also should have been able to evaluate the risk. The three tourists were there of their own accord and there was nothing the scientists could do about whether or not they were there. Laying the blame at Williams' feet is a case of blaming the survivor for events he had no control over. At most he had some responsibility for six people being on the mountain, not nine. Those three tourists would have been killed regardless of whether or not Williams and his party had visited the crater that day.

I'll admit, my knowledge of this comes from a series of abridged accounts in different publications, nearly all of which were biased against Williams. I didn't know the tourists would have gone it alone.

[Broomstick]

Basically, if I recall the timeline correctly, the scientist party and the tourist party met where the road terminated at the crater trail, having arrived separately. The only connection was both groups were present for the eruption itself. Admittedly, it's been a few years since I read much about it, and most of what I read was focused on the science and on Williams' unlikely survival - there just happened to be a neurosurgeon on vacation near the small hospital he was initially taken to. Were it not for that fortuitous circumstance permitting emergency surgery/stabilization Williams would likely have died as well. As it was, since the initial location did not have paritucuarly sophisticated equipment, said brain surgeon missed the rocks punched into Williams' head and they were discovered some considerable time after he returned to the United States. As they were newly cooled chunks of lava when they penetrated his brain they were sterile and thus there was no danger of infection in his particular case.