‘Bravest person I know’: Father’s pride as school shooting victim leaves hospital after 262 days

A 13-year-old girl who was critically wounded in the deadly February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, Canada, has been released from hospital after 262 days, her father said Thursday.

“There was never a day I stopped believing we would get here. The road ahead is still long, but this is a milestone no one thought we would reach,” David Gebala wrote in an emotional social media post addressed to his daughter Maya, calling her “the bravest person I know.”

Maya was among more than two dozen people wounded in the mass shooting at a secondary school in the small mining town in northern British Columbia, which left eight people dead, including six children, in the country’s deadliest school shooting in decades.

She was shot three times and airlifted to British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, where doctors initially told her family she was unlikely to make it through the night, according to Gebala.

“You refused to accept the words we heard 262 days ago when you came out of the OR. Look at you, my girl. You blew every expectation out of the water,” Gebala wrote in the post to Facebook, which included a video of Maya smiling in her wheelchair.

Since February, Maya has undergone five surgeries, including receiving a prosthetic skull, Gebala said in the post, which listed challenging and hopeful milestones over the past 262 days.

“251 days ago, you opened your eye, moved it, and shifted your leg only to be rushed back for emergency surgery that morning,” he wrote. “179 days ago, your prosthetic skull was placed. Your fifth surgery, and the one that finally stuck.”

“145 days ago, you smiled for the first time (intentionally) while we played thumb war,” Gebala went on. “61 days ago, I heard your voice again.”

“Now it’s time to leave these hospital walls behind and keep moving forward, Maya Bear,” Gebala wrote, thanking the nurses, doctors and therapists “who walked every step of this with us.”

Gebala has frequently offered updates on Maya’s long recovery in posts to Facebook, including a recent excursion to see the rock band Foo Fighters and celebrate her 13th birthday.

Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press/AP

Maya, who was in the school library when the massacre unfolded on February 10, was shot three times, including in the head, which shattered parts of her skull and left her with catastrophic brain injuries, according to a criminal complaint filed by her family against OpenAI.

The lawsuit, filed by Maya’s mother Cia Edmonds on her behalf, is one of dozens filed against OpenAI in both US and Canadian courts on behalf of victims, survivors and witnesses accusing the tech company of negligence after it emerged that the shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, had used ChatGPT to plan the attack. The province of British Columbia is also suing OpenAI.

OpenAI has pushed back against claims that it does not take safety seriously. In response to the lawsuits from the victims’ families, a company spokesperson told CNN in April that it has a “zero-tolerance policy for using our tools to assist in committing violence.” The company has said it deactivated an original account created by the shooter in June 2025 for violent activities, but Van Rootselaar made a second account to keep using the chatbot.

Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

Families of Tumbler Ridge shooting victims sue OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman

The company’s CEO Sam Altman has previously apologized to the community of Tumbler Ridge for failing to notify authorities to the shooter’s disturbing online conversations with the AI chatbot even after staff flagged the account internally.

Earlier this month, US authorities arrested a 30-year-old from Washington state who allegedly offered advice and sent money to Van Rootselaar ahead of the shooting.

CNN previously reported Van Rootselaar posted about guns and hunting and her apparent mental health struggles online in the lead-up to the massacre.

加拿大坦布勒里奇2月份发生的致命校园枪击案中，一名13岁女孩身受重伤。周四，女孩的父亲表示，女孩在住院262天后已经出院。

“我从未停止相信我们会走到今天。前路漫漫，但这却是没有人认为我们会达到的里程碑，”大卫·格巴拉在社交媒体上发表了一篇饱含深情的帖子，写给他的女儿玛雅，称她为“我认识的最勇敢的人”。

在不列颠哥伦比亚省北部一个小型矿业小镇的一所中学发生的大规模枪击事件中，玛雅是二十多名受伤者之一。这起事件造成八人死亡，其中包括六名儿童，是加拿大几十年来最致命的校园枪击事件。

据格巴拉称，她身中三枪，被空运至温哥华的卑诗省儿童医院，医生最初告诉她的家人，她可能熬不过当晚。

“你拒绝接受262天前你从手术室出来时我们听到的那些话。看看你，我的女儿。你超越了所有人的预期，”格巴拉在Facebook上发帖写道，帖子中还附上了一段玛雅坐在轮椅上微笑的视频。

格巴拉在帖子中表示，自二月份以来，玛雅已经接受了五次手术，包括安装假头骨。该帖子还列出了过去 262 天里充满挑战和希望的里程碑事件。

“251天前，你睁开了眼睛，动了动眼珠，挪了挪腿，结果当天早上就被紧急送回医院做了手术，”他写道。“179天前，你的假体头骨被安装好了。这是你的第五次手术，也是最后一次成功。”

“145天前，我们玩拇指大战的时候，你第一次（故意地）笑了，”格巴拉继续说道。“61天前，我又听到了你的声音。”

“现在是时候离开医院的围墙，继续前进了，玛雅熊，”格巴拉写道，并感谢“陪伴我们走过每一步的护士、医生和治疗师”。

格巴拉经常在 Facebook 上发布关于玛雅漫长康复过程的最新消息，包括最近一次去看摇滚乐队 Foo Fighters 的演出以及庆祝她 13 岁生日的旅行。

克里斯汀·穆斯基/加拿大通讯社/美联社

2 月 10 日大屠杀发生时，玛雅正在学校图书馆里，她身中三枪，其中一枪击中头部，导致部分头骨破碎，并造成灾难性的脑损伤。玛雅的家人向 OpenAI 提起刑事诉讼，控告了 OpenAI。

玛雅的母亲西亚·埃德蒙兹代表她提起的诉讼，是数十起针对OpenAI的诉讼之一。这些诉讼在美国和加拿大的法院提起，原告、受害者、幸存者和目击者均指控这家科技公司存在疏忽。此前有消息称，18岁的枪手杰西·范·鲁特塞拉尔曾使用ChatGPT策划了此次袭击。不列颠哥伦比亚省也对OpenAI提起了诉讼。

OpenAI 反驳了有关其不重视安全的说法。针对受害者家属提起的诉讼，该公司发言人于今年 4 月告诉 CNN，公司对“利用其工具协助实施暴力行为采取零容忍政策”。该公司表示，已于 2025 年 6 月停用了枪手创建的用于暴力活动的原始账户，但范·鲁特塞拉尔又创建了第二个账户继续使用该聊天机器人。

珍妮弗·戈蒂埃/路透社

特姆布勒里奇枪击案受害者家属起诉OpenAI及其首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼

该公司首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼此前曾就枪手与人工智能聊天机器人之间令人不安的在线对话向图姆布勒里奇社区道歉，尽管员工已在内部标记了该帐户，但该公司仍未将此事通知当局。

本月初，美国当局逮捕了一名来自华盛顿州的 30 岁男子，据称他在枪击事件发生前向范·鲁特塞拉尔提供了建议并汇款。

CNN此前报道称，在屠杀事件发生前，范·鲁特塞拉尔曾在网上发布有关枪支、狩猎以及她明显存在的精神健康问题的内容。