Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White says plans are still in the works to help Tumbler Ridge shooting survivor Maya Gebala access medical care in the United States.
“I saw it on the news, and I reached out to the family. That was it,” White said. “I would like to help in any way that I can.”
Maya’s mother, Cia Edmonds, announced White’s offer to help with her daughter’s medical care in a March 25 social media post, saying he pledged to pay for treatment at “one of the world’s most top-tier hospitals in L.A., California” and cover accommodations for the family.
White said Maya’s family simply wants the best possible care for their daughter.
“There’s some great places in L.A., there’s a great place in Houston, there’s a great place in Seattle,” he said. “So we’re still sort of working through all that.”
White said he was frustrated with some of the hurdles involved in bringing Maya south of the border for medical care.
“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” he said. “You would be [expletive] disgusted to know how hard it really is. Me and my team have been working on it. It’s still a work in progress, but I’m going to do my best.”
Maya was the most severely injured of the survivors of the school shooting in the small northeastern British Columbia town that killed five students and a teacher’s aide and injured 27 others on Feb. 10.
She was shot three times at close range when 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar opened fire in the northeastern B.C. school.
One bullet hit Maya in the head above her left eye, a second struck her in the neck, and the third grazed her cheek and earlobe.
Van Rootselaar, who was found dead at the scene with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, had killed his mother and 11-year-old half-brother in their home earlier in the day.
Doctors originally told the family the damage to Maya’s brain was “too much for her to endure, and she wouldn’t make the night,” Edmonds said in a social media post at the time.
Now that Maya is stable enough to travel, the family has said it is ready to move to the United States to give the 12-year-old her best shot at rehabilitation.
“After many nights of research, questioning, and fear of the unknown, we decided to say yes to an opportunity for an aggressive approach to her rehabilitation through privatized health care,” Edmonds confirmed in an April 9 Facebook post. “We are excited. As well as nervous, away from family and resources, an opportunity we couldn’t refuse.”
With a change in venue potentially on the horizon, Edmonds said her hope is “we will be able to build routine and relationships, that will hopefully feel normal(ish).”
