A surgery for Maya Gebala, the 12-year-old Tumbler Ridge shooting victim fighting for her life in BC Children’s Hospital, didn’t go as planned.
On March 20, she went for surgery to have a prosthetic piece of her skull put in place.
Late that evening, her mother, Cia Edmonds, posted on social media: “Today’s surgery to have her skull full again, didn’t happen,” the post says.
“A leaking abscess in the centre of her brain took over.”
In a post days later, Edmonds clarified: “She DID go for surgery, she did not get her prosthetic.”
“Seven hours we sit and wait, to find out, she’d had an abscess burst… a pocket of infection that went so deep it couldn’t be seen,” she wrote.
“The surgeons spent hours cleaning this out, with no way to be certain.”
Maya is in the ICU in a medically induced coma. Edmonds said while her daughter still can’t talk, she can move an arm and a leg and follow movement with one eye.
This was her fourth surgery since she was shot and suffered severe brain injuries in the Feb. 10 mass shooting that left eight victims dead in the small town.
Editor’s note: This story has been amended to reflect new details shared by Maya’s mother. She has clarified that Maya did undergo surgery, but the planned prosthetic could not be placed. A previous version of this story was based on the initial public post March 21.