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Maya Gebala has started communicating using a tablet in what her mom calls 'incredible strides'
Tumbler Ridge shooting survivor Maya Gebala’s condition has been improving steadily, her family reports, with the latest news being that she’s started communicating with the use of a tablet.
In social media post Thursday, her mother wrote: “In the past week or so, Maya had made some incredible strides. It just clicked. Her responses, her reactions. I made her a ‘yes/no’ button set she’s learned to use. I found an app on her iPad for non verbal communications. She’s learned to be more deliberate with that as well.”
In a minute-long video posted to Facebook, her mom, Cia Edmonds, who posts under the name “Cia Later,” can be seen asking Maya if she was happy to see a recent visitor. Maya reaches out from her hospital bed to press a large button, causing the tablet to respond: “Yes.”
Her mom then asks Maya if she’s sad. Maya responds with another yes. Her mom says: “You really missed her, eh?” Her daughter smiles as the conversation continues.
Her mother then asks: “Should we go for a walk tomorrow babe? Yes or no?” Maya reaches for the button but looks tired.
Another video in the post shows Maya being helped into a wheelchair and pressing a button to lower herself in a sling. Her mom writes: “When she’s lifted in her sling she drives herself that little corner smirk.. that’s Maya.. 4.5 months, and there are pieces of her trying to shine through.”
On the weekend, her father, David Gebala, wrote that Maya’s condition had improved enough that she was able to leave B.C. Children’s Hospital for a day out at a botanical garden in Vancouver. His update in a Facebook post included a collection of photos showing the 12-year-old at Bloedel Conservatory.
Maya has been undergoing treatment at the Vancouver hospital since she was shot by Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18, during a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., on Feb. 10 this year. Six people were killed at a school and two others in the shooter’s home during the attack.
The latest updates come after her mother shared a heartbreaking message on a GoFundMe page informing supporters that the family has been struggling to find appropriate housing in Canada.
“It has been nearly impossible to acquire housing. knowing she will likely be in a wheelchair,” reads an update posted on behalf of Edmonds on May 29.
In an earlier update on her Facebook page , Edmonds said the family had been unable to relocate to L.A., despite previously accepting an offer from Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White to pay for Maya’s treatment and the family’s accommodation in the city, because Maya was “too fragile” to risk travelling.
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