KRISTY GIBSON on BRET MICHAELS "We are closer now"

Kristi Gibson told to PEOPLE Magazine that she rode with Michaels in the ambulance to St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. "I said, 'I'm not leaving his side,'" says Gibson. "I held his hand and told him, 'It's going to be okay.' Just from his eyes, you could tell how much pain he was in. I wanted to take away that pain so bad."

But all Michaels ? who calls his on-and-off relationship with Gibson over the past 16 years "a positive work in progress" ? could think of was his family. "He was just worried about me and the girls ? that's all he cared about," says Gibson. "I was like don't worry about us, we'll be fine."

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