Siegfried: Roy Is Recovering

Illusionist Has Been Off Respirator For Two Weeks

(AP)  Illusionist Roy Horn of "Siegfried & Roy" is slowly recovering from a tiger attack that has kept him hospitalized since October, his partner said Monday.

"He is moving now, little by little," Siegfried Fischbacher said in an interview on the NBC television network. "(He's) speaking a few words ... but this develops also every day."

Roy had been off his respirator for two weeks, Fischbacher said, and will be recovered enough to spend Christmas in Las Vegas, where the duo was performing at the time of the attack. He is currently a patient at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

"I think he's going to recover everything," Fischbacher said. "I have no doubt."

Fischbacher downplayed Roy's injuries from the Oct. 3 attack, describing the illusionist's wound as "a little punch hole" on the left side of his neck. Fischbacher said a stroke Roy suffered afterward resulted from blood pressure medication that sometimes made him feel faint.

Horn, 59, was mauled by one of the white tigers featured in the duo's show at The Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Fischbacher has suggested that the animal was trying to help Horn, but animal experts disputed that.