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Mother of U.S. Woman Shot in Mumbai on Her Daughter's Escape

Monday, December 01, 2008

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," November 28, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: 25 people from the Synchronicity Foundation, a meditation group based in Virginia, were on a spiritual retreat in India when the terrorists opened fire, and Andy Varagona of Nashville is a member of the group and was shot in the leg, a bullet also grazed her neck.

Andy was sitting with the father and daughter from Virginia. They were also killed during the attack.

Joining us now on the phone from Oak Ridge, Tennessee is her mother Celeste Varagona.

Celeste, thank you very much for talking to us. Appreciate your time tonight, ma'am.

Video: Watch the 'H&C' interview

CELESTE VARAGONA, DAUGHTER WOUNDED IN MUMBAI TERROR ATTACK: OK.

COLMES: Can you tell us what Andy relayed to you about what happened to her?

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VARAGONA: What she said was that she was having dinner in the lobby of the Taj Hotel in the restaurant when a gunman came in, and started shooting, and the two people from Virginia, they were right next to her, died. The man fell on her lap, and she was shot in the arm and also in the hip.

And she crawled under the table, and tried to crawl towards the kitchen and then hide behind a door, and then two more terrorists start throwing a grenade over there, so some people from the kitchen pick her up because that time she had lost a lot of blood, and she — of course, she was shot, in two different places, so they pick her up, and they brought her outside to a back door, and it's a miracle.

As soon as they were out, out of the back door, the whole kitchen exploded.

COLMES: Oh wow.

VARAGONA: And so they put her in a taxi cab and brought her to the hospital, so we are so grateful that she's still alive. I talked to her this afternoon, and she was still in pain, of course, and — in the intensive care, but her husband made it there, and so she was doing better.

COLMES: How is she doing now? We understand that she will be OK, and she is — she's going to be fine, right?

VARAGONA: I hope so. I hope so. Of course you know when you have a bull in the hip and have an operation there, of course, she cannot walk or anything, you know. She's still in intensive care, but we are praying that everything is going to be OK, and we pray that she can come home soon.

But she said 24 or 25 people, I'm not sure, though, from Synchronicity went all together. Seven were in the hospital, two, of course, died right at the table with her, and they don't have any idea where the others are, if they are hostages, if they were dead. They don't know anything about it.

COLMES: What was she doing there? What is the Synchronicity Foundation? What was she doing there?

VARAGONA: Andrina has a clinic in Nashville, Tennessee that do meditation, body alignment, acupuncture, all that, and Synchronicity is a place in Virginia where they teach how to do meditation just by listening to music instead of doing it just like they used to in the old days, and so they were there to learn how to do it even better and help people as much as they could.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Celeste, thank you very much.

VARAGONA: You're welcome.

HANNITY: We appreciate you taking time to be with us tonight.

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