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

Maya Gebala Leaves Hospital After 262 Days of Recovery

Activelifezero.com – Thirteen-year-old Maya Gebala has left hospital after spending 262 days recovering from catastrophic injuries sustained in the February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.

Her father, David Gebala, marked the moment with an emotional message for his daughter, describing her discharge as a milestone that once appeared beyond reach. Maya had been flown to British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver after being shot three times during the attack, including once in the head.

“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.”

In his message, David Gebala called Maya “the bravest person I know” and shared a video showing her smiling from her wheelchair. Her release from hospital does not bring an end to her recovery, but it marks a major transition after months of surgeries, treatment and rehabilitation.

A Long Recovery Following the Tumbler Ridge Attack

The February 10 massacre at a secondary school in the small northern British Columbia mining community killed eight people, including six children, and injured more than two dozen others. It was Canada’s deadliest school shooting in decades.

Maya was in the school library when the violence began. The gunfire caused severe head trauma, shattering parts of her skull and leaving her with catastrophic brain injuries. Doctors initially warned her family that she might not survive the first night after being rushed into surgery.

David Gebala’s public updates have chronicled both the uncertainty of those early hours and the difficult progress that followed. He wrote that Maya underwent five operations during her hospitalization, including surgery to fit a prosthetic skull.

“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.”

His post outlined moments that became important markers for the family. He recalled that 251 days earlier, Maya opened one eye, moved it and shifted her leg, only to require emergency surgery later that morning. Her prosthetic skull was placed 179 days before her discharge, a procedure he described as her fifth operation and the one that “finally stuck.”

There were also smaller signs of recovery that carried enormous meaning. Maya intentionally smiled for the first time 145 days before leaving hospital while playing thumb war with her father. Sixty-one days before her discharge, he heard her voice again.

“Now it’s time to leave these hospital walls behind and keep moving forward, Maya Bear.”

David Gebala thanked the nurses, doctors and therapists who supported Maya and the family through the months-long ordeal. His posts have also shared moments of life beyond medical treatment, including an outing to see Foo Fighters and a celebration of Maya’s 13th birthday.

Legal Actions Following the Shooting

The Tumbler Ridge shooting has also led to legal action involving OpenAI. Maya’s mother, Cia Edmonds, filed a criminal complaint on her daughter’s behalf. The family’s case is among dozens brought in courts in the United States and Canada by victims, survivors and witnesses.

Those filings accuse OpenAI of negligence after it emerged that the shooter, 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, had used ChatGPT while planning the attack. British Columbia has also filed a lawsuit against the company.

OpenAI has rejected claims that it failed to take safety seriously. In April, a spokesperson said the company has a “zero-tolerance policy for using our tools to assist in committing violence.” The company has said it deactivated an account created by Van Rootselaar in June 2025 because of violent activity, but that she later opened another account and continued using the chatbot.

Chief executive Sam Altman previously apologized to the Tumbler Ridge community for the company’s failure to alert authorities about disturbing conversations involving the shooter and the AI system, even after employees had flagged the account internally.

Earlier this month, authorities in the United States arrested a 30-year-old Washington state resident accused of giving Van Rootselaar advice and sending money before the shooting. Van Rootselaar had also posted online about guns, hunting and apparent mental health struggles in the period leading up to the attack.

A Milestone, Not the End of the Journey

For Maya and her family, leaving hospital represents a profound achievement after a prognosis that initially offered little hope. It also underscores the lasting impact of mass violence on survivors, whose recovery often continues long after the immediate emergency has passed.

Maya’s next steps will take place outside hospital walls, but her father’s message made clear that her progress has already exceeded what many feared possible in the aftermath of the shooting.

Her story has become one of endurance within a community still grappling with devastating loss: a young survivor moving forward, supported by family and by the medical teams who helped guide her through 262 extraordinary days.