Chrysostom

🇨🇦 In Canada, a 13-year-old girl was shot 3 times protecting her classmates during a mass shooting at her school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. Maya Gebala was in the library when the attack began. She tried to lock the library door to keep the shooter out. When she couldn’t secure it in time, she ran and hid under a table. The gunman killed 8 people, 6 of them children. Doctors told her family she was unlikely to survive the night. Maya spent the following 262 days in hospital and underwent 5 surgeries, including the placement of a prosthetic skull after parts of her own were shattered. She spent months fighting brain injuries that left her unable to open her eyes, move, or speak. Slowly, she began to recover and opened one eye. Then, her face lit up the room when she smiled intentionally for the first time during a game of thumb war with her dad. Then, she got her voice back, and was finally able to celebrate her 13th birthday in hospital. Last month, after 262 days, Maya was discharged and is now back home with her family. Her father called her “the bravest person I know”