“My Daughter Is Fighting for Her Life”: 12-Year-Old Shot in Head and Neck in Canada School Massacre

A school day in a small British Columbia community began “as any other,” a mother wrote—until a phone call, an alert, and a rush of sirens collapsed normal life into a single, unbearable sentence: her 12-year-old daughter had been shot and was now **fighting for her life**. What followed wasn’t just an emergency response. It was a long, suspended stretch of waiting—between towns, between operating rooms, between updates—while families tried to understand how a place built for learning became the center of a mass casualty event.

A Mother’s Post From Critical Care: “This Doesn’t Even Feel Real”

The most piercing account of the aftermath doesn’t come from a press conference or a police statement. It comes from a mother sitting inside **Vancouver Children’s Hospital**, typing through shock.

“Im writting this post sitting in Vancouver children’s hospital while my daughter fights for her life,” **Cia Edmonds** wrote on Facebook, describing how the day had started normally—until it didn’t.

Her daughter, **Maya**, 12, had suffered gunshot wounds during the **Feb. 10** school shooting in **Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia**. Edmonds wrote that her child had been shot in the head and the neck, and that doctors were trying “to repair the damage.”

The words are raw and uneven, the way real-life trauma often reads when it hasn’t been processed into neat sentences yet. There’s no polished framing, no attempt to sound composed. It’s the language of a parent thrown into the worst possible version of a weekday.

“She was a lucky one, I suppose,” Edmonds continued, before turning outward—toward other families—offering condolences amid what she called “this tragedy.” Then the line that reveals how the ground has shifted under her:

“This doesnt even feel real… I never thought I would be asking for prayers.. but please please, pray for my baby.”

In crises like this, people reach for what they can reach for. For Edmonds, it was prayer and community. For others, it was a hospital hallway. For an entire town, it was the agonizing realization that “school” could become a word that tastes different forever.

## 🏥 The Long Distance Between Tumbler Ridge and Vancouver

Maya was transported from **Tumbler Ridge to Vancouver Children’s Hospital**, according to Edmonds’ Facebook post and a **GoFundMe** campaign organized by Edmonds’ cousin.

Even without additional details, that transfer tells a story of urgency and scale. It suggests that what happened wasn’t something that could be handled locally. It required specialized pediatric critical care—resources often concentrated in major cities.

And for families, transfer is never just logistics. It’s emotional whiplash:

– Leaving the familiar behind while your child’s condition is uncertain
– Traveling while time feels like it’s racing and crawling at once
– Entering a bigger hospital where everything moves fast, but answers can take hours

The GoFundMe page described Maya as being in **critical care** and emphasized that the **recovery timeline is unknown**. It added one piece of fragile hope: she made it through transport.

“All we know is that Maya made it through transport from Tumbler Ridge to Vancouver Children’s Hospital and currently in critical care,” her cousin **Krysta Hunt** wrote.

In a mass shooting’s aftermath, survival often becomes a series of checkpoints. Not victory. Not relief. Just the next milestone. Transport. Admission. Imaging. Surgery. A night passed. A morning reached. The next update.

## 🚨 What Police Say Happened at the School

While Maya’s family was living inside the present tense of critical care, authorities were still working to stabilize the scene back in Tumbler Ridge.

As PEOPLE previously reported, the **Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)** said officers received reports of an **active shooter** at **Tumbler Ridge Secondary School** at approximately **1:20 p.m. local time** on Tuesday, **Feb. 10**.

The number—1:20—anchors the day. A time stamp that splits life into “before” and “after” for an entire community.

According to RCMP:

– **Six people were found deceased inside the school.**
– **Two additional people were found dead inside a residence in the community.**
– The suspected shooter was found inside the school with what appeared to be a **self-inflicted injury**.

RCMP said the suspect had been identified as a **female**, but that a name or motive had not been publicly released at that point.

It’s a familiar pattern in unfolding tragedies: early information arrives in parts. First the alerts. Then the confirmations. Then the numbers—each one landing with its own shock.

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## 🧍‍♀️ The Injured: “Serious or Life-Threatening” and the Unknown Middle

The dead are counted quickly in news reports because they must be. But in the middle of any mass casualty event is another group—those whose outcomes are not yet known.

RCMP said that, in addition to the deceased:

– **Two victims were airlifted** to a hospital with “serious or life-threatening injuries.”
– As many as **25 others** were being assessed and treated for **non-life-threatening injuries**.

Maya, according to her mother and family fundraiser, was transported to Vancouver Children’s Hospital and was in **critical care**.

These categories—deceased, life-threatening, non-life-threatening—are the clinical language of triage. Necessary language. But behind it are children, parents, teachers, friends, and the quiet terror of waiting for a phone to ring again.

For the people in “serious or life-threatening,” every hour becomes its own cliff edge. For the families of those being assessed, there is fear too—fear of unseen injuries, fear of delayed complications, fear of what the mind will carry even if the body heals.

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## 🏠 Two Scenes in One Day: School and Home

Authorities said two additional people were found dead at a **residence** in the community. Later, authorities identified the suspected shooter as **18-year-old Jesse van Rootselaar**, and police said van Rootselaar is believed to have killed her **mother and stepbrother** at home in Tumbler Ridge before traveling to the high school, where six others were fatally shot.

The movement from home to school is one of the details that makes this story feel especially destabilizing. It suggests a day that didn’t erupt in a single place and end there, but traveled—crossing boundaries that are supposed to feel safe.

Home is where the day begins. School is where the day continues. In this account, both are touched.

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## 🧩 What’s Been Released, What Hasn’t—and Why That Gap Matters

The text is clear that the investigation is ongoing, and that important details have not been publicly released.

– Police identified the suspected shooter as **Jesse van Rootselaar**, 18.
– Authorities have not publicly released a **motive**.
– Early reporting noted the suspect was identified as a **female**, and later reporting identified the suspect by name.

When motive is unknown, the public instinctively tries to fill in blanks. Responsible reporting does the opposite: it holds the line between what is confirmed and what is speculation.

This story already contains enough tragedy without turning unanswered questions into theories. The facts that are presented—times, counts, transfers, conditions—are heavy enough.

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## 💬 The Facebook Post: Grief, Gratitude, and a Plea to the World

Edmonds’ post is heartbreaking not only for what it says, but for how it says it.

She describes her child as fighting for her life. She describes the day as starting normally. She describes the unreality of it all. And she offers condolences even while her own family is in crisis—an instinct many parents will recognize: when tragedy is big enough, empathy spills out even when you’re drowning.

Her words also reveal another theme that often emerges after mass violence: the sudden transformation of private pain into public witnessing. A parent asking for prayers becomes a rallying point. A post becomes an update channel. Strangers become donors. A small family circle becomes an online community holding its breath together.

That doesn’t make the pain easier. But it changes how it’s carried.

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## 🤝 The Fundraiser: Turning Support Into Something Practical

The GoFundMe, organized by **Krysta Hunt**, frames its purpose plainly: to support Cia and Maya “during this devastating time,” and to allow Maya’s mother to stay by her side “without financial concern.”

“This support will provide support for Maya through her recovery. And allow for Cia to be by her side without financial concern.”

The fundraising details in your text add another layer of reality: after the sirens fade, practical burdens begin.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised **over $51,000** toward an **$80,000** goal, with **539 donations**.

Even those numbers carry emotion. They show that people responded quickly, that a wide group of donors saw the story and chose to help. In crises like this, money is not a cure—but it can remove obstacles: travel costs, time off work, meals, accommodation, the small expenses that pile up while a parent refuses to leave a hospital room.

The page also states, repeatedly and with honesty, that the **recovery timeline is unknown**. That single sentence is often the truest thing anyone can say in intensive care: no one can promise what comes next.

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## 🧠 The Trauma of “Any Other Day”

One of the most devastating lines in Edmonds’ post is simple: “Today started as any other.”

That’s the line that many survivors and families repeat after public tragedies. Because it captures the betrayal of routine—the way a normal morning can become a catastrophe by afternoon.

– A backpack packed.
– A goodbye at the door.
– Plans for later.
– The assumption you’ll see them after school.

The text doesn’t describe Maya’s morning, and we shouldn’t invent it. But the emotional truth of that sentence doesn’t require details. Everyone knows what “any other day” feels like. That’s why it hits so hard.

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## 🕵️ Ongoing Investigation: The Story Isn’t Finished, Even if the Day Is Over

The report ends where real life often begins after the headline: the investigation continues.

“An investigation into the shooting remains ongoing.”

That means evidence collection, interviews, reconstruction of events, and the long, careful process of establishing what can be stated definitively.

For families, “ongoing” can be its own kind of torment. It means:

– Waiting for clarity
– Waiting for official confirmation
– Waiting for answers that may not come quickly—or at all

For a community, it means living in the shadow of an event that has already happened, while still being forced to relive it through updates and rumors and fragments of information.

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## 🧾 Facts and Claims Included Here

To keep this precise and publication-safe, here’s what this expanded article relies on:

– **Maya**, 12, was shot in the **head and neck** during the Feb. 10 school shooting and was transported from **Tumbler Ridge** to **Vancouver Children’s Hospital**, where she is in **critical care**, per her mother’s Facebook post and a GoFundMe organized by a cousin.
– Her mother, **Cia Edmonds**, wrote that her daughter is “fighting for her life” and asked for prayers, offering condolences to other families.
– RCMP said they received reports of an active shooter at **Tumbler Ridge Secondary School** at about **1:20 p.m. local time** on Tuesday, Feb. 10.
– RCMP said **six** were found deceased inside the school and **two** were found dead inside a residence.
– RCMP said the suspected shooter was found inside the school with what appeared to be a **self-inflicted injury**; early reporting said the suspect was identified as a **female** and that a name or motive had not been publicly released at that time.
– Authorities later identified the suspected shooter as **18-year-old Jesse van Rootselaar**; police said van Rootselaar is believed to have killed her mother and stepbrother at home before traveling to the school, where six others were fatally shot; she later died at the school from what authorities described as a self-inflicted injury.
– RCMP said **two victims were airlifted** with “serious or life-threatening injuries” and up to **25 others** were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
– The GoFundMe stated Maya’s recovery timeline is unknown; as of Wednesday afternoon it raised over **$51,000** toward **$80,000**, with **539 donations**.
– The investigation remains ongoing.

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## 💡 Takeaway: In the Aftermath, Time Becomes Two Things—Medical and Emotional

For Maya and her family, the next chapter is being written in ICU hours: scans, procedures, monitoring, and an unknown recovery timeline. For the broader community, the next chapter is written in a different kind of time: the slow processing of shock, the grief for those who died, and the difficult work of returning to buildings and routines that no longer feel neutral.

Edmonds’ post captures the core of it in plain language—unpolished, honest, and devastating: this didn’t feel real, and yet it was happening in real time, with her child fighting for her life.