Posted on 02/13/2026 2:59:29 AM PST by jerod
12-year-old Maya Gebala remains in B.C. Children's Hospital fighting for her life
WARNING: This article contains graphic images and explicit details of a mass shooting event.
For 12-year-old Maya Gebala’s parents, any movement — even a tiny leg twitch — is reason to rejoice. It comes after watching their child intubated and treated by emergency health professionals.
The Grade 7 student was one of the victims shot Tuesday at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School — an attack that left eight people, including six children, dead.
Maya was airlifted to B.C. Children's Hospital and has been fighting for her life since.
Forty-year-old Cia Edmonds says she feels blessed her child survived, and is urging Canadians to support all the families whose children or loved ones were killed or critically injured.
Posts of Maya’s progress on social media are being met by thousands of comments — people moved by the image of the tween grinning in her hockey helmet, juxtaposed against the devastating reality of her bruised and bandaged face. A GoFundMe has raised thousands for her care.
It is painful for Maya’s parents to see this tenacious hockey player, who taught herself how to walk on stilts, now so motionless.
“She's way too stubborn to let this…” David Gebala said, as his voice trailed off while sobbing. “She'll pull through this, I believe that she will."
He says thousands of well wishes from around the world help, but posts that attack or politicize this tragic massacre, trouble both of them.
He and his former partner are frustrated that some of the posts have attracted vicious, angry comments directed at the mother of the shooter, after she was also shot and killed in the tragedy.
Edmonds says she was friends with the suspect’s mother, Jennifer Strang, and she used to babysit the shooter — 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar — as a child.
Edmonds weeps for all hit by this tragedy, including the perpetrator's mother.
Edmonds says she watched the single mother, who worked long shifts at a nearby mine, fight to help her child. Edmonds says at one point, Van Rootselaar tried to light a mattress on fire “and burn the house down.” She adds the teen had been hospitalized several times with mental health issues.
“People are trying to politicize what this is about. It's not about guns. It's not about transgenderism. It's about mental health. It's about a lack of resources,” Edmonds told CBC News.
“She really — I truly believe that in her heart — did everything she could to try to help … I know that she struggled.”.
'I believe she's been shot' Tuesday began as a normal day for first year high school student Maya. The 12-year-old was excited to get to class to work on a catapult project, and planned to drop by her mom’s tattoo and clothing shop at lunch, but she didn’t show up.
That’s when the call came. The school was locked down.
At first Edmonds says she didn’t panic. But then a friend saw two armed police officers run into the building, so she rushed over.
She found a group of parents parked in the recreation centre parking lot. The father of another student showed her a text message.
“He says, ‘Dad, I'm fine.’ And I said, ‘Ask him how Maya is.’ And then he shows me again, and it says, ‘Maya's been dragged out, and I believe she's been shot.’”
Edmonds raced to the town’s health centre and through glass saw medical staff cutting off the girl's clothing. But the mother was held back, told that the victims hadn’t been identified.
“I said, 'That's my baby in there!'”
Both of Maya’s parents are unclear exactly what happened in the school. They’ve heard fellow students rushed to save Maya, after bullets hit her teacher, and then her, in the head.
“There's a bullet ... that went through her earlobe and then through the head and out the back, and then one was stuck in her throat,” said Edmonds.
So far surgeons have warned her that Maya may not recover.
“They had told us there's nothing that we can do … so lay with her,” she said. “It’s almost been 48 hours and she’s still fighting. She’s so strong.”
Gebala says he’s hopeful after “incredible improvements” — hearing his child cough for the first time, and moving her hand and leg.
He puts an arm around Maya’s mother, as they sit on a bench near the hospital, fighting back tears and finding strength in the waves of international support pouring in.
“I just can't wait till she opens her eyes, or smiles, or says, 'Mama.' I just want her to say mama,” said Edmonds.
“If she said mama one time, just one time.”
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
The lad belonged in an institution... Not in a home, or on the streets. We need more mental institutions and we need more people confined to them for their own safety and or the safety of the public.
So who gets the blame? The mom supported this insane transition nonsense. Certainly the villains are the people pushing this ‘gender affirming care’ insanity. The Mom was just a willing idiot apparently. She paid the ultimate price: she was murdered by her own son! Delusion pandering mutilations have now led to multiple school shootings and even more suicides. It is part of the larger problem of people who think reality can be faked .
The shooter’s mother is dead.
Compassion can not be given to a dead person.
All of the people supporting this affirmation bullshit are partially to blame including the mother, any doctors involved and the Canadian government. These people belong in a mental institution until proper treatment resolves their mental delusions. AFFIRMATION KILLS.
Good luck trying to confine an 18 year-old in a mental institution. Given the current state of jurisprudence, it isn’t going to happen regardless how advisable. Civil rights, you know.
The “State failed her”? What does that mean?
Canada has involuntary civil commitment.
Wonder if the mother of the perp tried that avenue.
If only to protect herself and her daughter.
Only a lad
You really can’t blame him
Only a lad
Society made him
Only a lad
He’s our responsibility
Oh, oh-woah-woah
Only a lad
He really couldn’t help it
Only a lad
He didn’t wanna do it
Only a lad
He’s underprivileged and abused
Perhaps a little bit confused
Oh-oh-oh, oh-woah-woah-woah
Woah-woah-woah
Ohh, woah-woah-woah
- Oingo Boingo
See my reply #12.
I can’t think of words for this. It’s just too sad. I can’t imagine seeing one of my children laying there like that.
A beautiful child whose life is cut short, and a mother whose grief is beyond comprehension.
“”Imagine his poor mother (who’s also dead)””
Where does that come from? I didn’t see it in the article..
See it now in another thread...with all the business in AZ, everything else seems to have taken a backseat in the news.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4366685/posts
I suppose I can feel come sympathy. The Canadian health care system probably pressured mum to dope up her son with so many chemicals and hormones because HE was obviously a girl stuck in the wrong body and to challenge the trans dogma is illegal. However the mom still maintained the fantasy for him encouraging his mental illness.
The murderer was pumped full of psychoactive chemicals ... some forced upon him, some of his own choosing. Every adult in his life was pandering to his delusions. His father was not present, for whatever reason.
How does anybody expect that totally fccked up situation to end well?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.