Taylor Norcross, the 27-year-old Auburn woman injured in a moose-car collision last week, is still in critical condition in a medically induced coma, her fiance said Tuesday, but is showing some signs of improving.

Frank Gatto, 39, of Auburn said his fiancee is still fighting to survive, but there are some encouraging signs she could recover at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where she has been hospitalized since last Wednesday.

“She’s breathing better, and she’s somewhat responsive to touch now,” Gatto said. “She’s still hanging in there.”

Gatto said doctors told him that she still has spikes of high pressure in her brain, and that is part of why they have so far waited to try to bring her out of the medically induced coma. Doctors are trying to reduce swelling in her brain.

Gatto said it’s unknown how long it will be before doctors attempt to bring Norcross out of the coma, or if they will be able to.

“She has shown some slight improvements,” Gatto said. “We’re by her side.”

He said it’s also unclear what the extent of brain damage might be if Norcross does recover.

“Will there be memory loss, or a loss of motor skills? We just don’t know,” Gatto said.

Gatto and Norcross were heading home from their work at Bay City Motors in Portland at about 8 p.m. last Wednesday when the Infiniti sedan Gatto was driving hit a moose that was straddling the Maine Turnpike near the Gray exit.

Gatto has said he didn’t see the moose and had no time to brake before striking the animal. The moose ripped the roof off the car, but Gatto somehow emerged unscathed while Norcross suffered severe head injuries. Norcross did not appear to have any other injuries from the crash, such as broken bones or damage to internal organs.

Moose-vehicle collisions can be deadly and are not infrequent in Maine – there were 322 of them in 2014 and 212 through Sept. 15 of this year. That’s down from about 650 per year a decade ago. Maine Department of Transportation officials have said they’ve taken a number of safety measures to reduce moose-vehicle collisions, including more “moose-crossing” signs, roadside reflectors to help drivers see moose and reducing the moose density in Aroostook County, where the collisions occur most frequently.

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