A 12-year-old girl is fighting for life in hospital after she was shot in the head and neck by a school shooter in Canada.
Maya Gebala was one of at least two-dozen children and teachers wounded when a ‘female in a dress’ opened fire at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.
At least seven people were killed in the shooting at the small town in eastern British Columbia on Tuesday in Canada’s deadliest mass shooting in 40 years.
Two more were found dead at a nearby home believed to be connected to the massacre. The killer also shot herself dead at the school.
Maya’s mother Cia Edmonds said she was by her critically wounded daughter’s bedside after she was airlifted to Vancouver Children’s Hospital.
‘Today started as any other. Now, however, my 12-year-old daughter is fighting for her life while they try to repair the damage from a gunshot wound to the head, and one to the neck,’ she said.
‘She was a lucky one, I suppose. Condolences to the other families during this tragedy. This doesn’t even feel real.
‘I never thought I would be asking for prayers… but please, please pray for my baby.’
Maya’s family said she was hit by shrapnel during the shooting but it was unknown how she was hit and how much damage was done.
Edmonds’s cousin Krysta Hunt started a GoFundMe so Maya’s mother could take time off work to help her through recovery.
She wrote that there was no recovery timeline but Maya cleared the first hurdle by making it through transport on Vancouver.
The girl’s aunt Marta Batten added: ‘There are no words for the fear and pain our family is feeling in this moment.’
Maya was a skilled defender on the local Tumbler Ridge Raptors under-13 ice hockey team in the North East Recreational Hockey League.
The shooter has not yet been named and their motive remains unclear. An emergency alert described the shooter as a ‘female in a dress with brown hair’.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police have not confirmed if the suspect found dead at the school is the same person described in the alert.
Details about the victims, including their ages, are being withheld pending family notification, police said, citing Canadian privacy laws.
A video showed students walking out of the school with their hands raised as police vehicles surrounded the building and a helicopter circled overhead.
Tumbler Ridge, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies about 736 miles north of Vancouver, has a population of 2,400.
It is described as an ‘incredibly safe community’ by town councillors.
The remote community is known for its lakes, rivers, waterfalls and hiking trails. The area earned UNESCO Global Geopark status due to the presence of hundreds of dinosaur tracks and fossils.
The secondary school, which enrolls 175 students, and its elementary school, will be closed for the rest of the week.
British Columbia Premier David Eby told reporters that police officers reached the school within two minutes.
RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd added that investigators had identified a suspect but would not release a name, and that the shooter’s motive remained unclear.
He added that police are still investigating the connection between the shooter and the victims.
Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said the whole community is grieving.
‘I broke down,’ he said, saying it was ‘devastating’ to learn how many had died in the community of 2,700, which he called a ‘big family’.
‘I have lived here for 18 years,’ Krakowka said. ‘I probably know every one of the victims.’
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a social media post that he was devastated by the shooting.
‘I join Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly today, and in gratitude for the courage and selflessness of the first responders who risked their lives to protect their fellow citizens,’ he wrote.
Canada’s government has responded to previous mass shootings with gun control measures, including a recently broadened ban on all guns it considers assault weapons.
Tuesday’s shootings were Canada’s deadliest rampage since 2020, when a gunman in Nova Scotia killed 13 people and set fires that left another nine dead.
