I'm trying to look inside myself to see if I could do what Maya Gebala is seen doing here in this CCTV image. This is captured from the video of the moment in Tumbler Ridge, BC, the day Maya faced certain death. At first she faced it through the window of the door she is holding shut, and a moment later, a matter of a few seconds on the clock, she is facing the smoking barrel of an assault rifle pointing at her face, and firing, hitting Maya twice.
She put herself between the 200 lbs. of psychotic rage shooting to kill with a high-powered rifle, until the psychotic shot her and everybody else in the library then shot himself.
This has to be the most unforgettable moment of 2026, of the century, and a historical fact of Maya's character. I am not sure anyone can grasp what we are seeing in the photograph of Maya standing up to the raging killer twice her size armed to the teeth.
I say this because it is something I have actually seen never in my 71 years. That's a long newsreel of death and destruction. There isn't a single 12 year old girl squaring off against a gigantic heavily armed mass murderer. This girl is basically challenging the attacker with the body language of a tiger and telling him that the fight is on. In the picture of Maya she is demonstrating it in real time.
It would be unbelievable enough if Maya's story ended at that moment frankly. It hasn't ended. To be clear, Maya isn't the shut-in type. This 12 year old girl knew her way through the woods, around firearms, driving vehicles (she owned a dirt bike), athletics (she's a hockey player), and total environmentalist outdoors person like her Dad, and her Mom, and her friends and extended family.
There was more than a plucky girl with instinct for survival on display. This girl was ready to fight. This girl is still ready to fight. Less than 7 months after the assault and massacre in the school library of Maya's home town of Tumbler Ridge, I'm not exaggerating, she was in Surrey, BC., Saturday, Aug 8, 2026, waving to a 160-motorcycle strong jamboree raising money for her long-term medical needs from the multiple surgeries she had at BC Women's Hospital.
The bikers jam in Surrey, a large city in the Lower Mainland beside Vancouver, BC, was riding in salute to Maya (with Maya in attendance!) and to raise a few thousand dollars put to her long-term care in recovery, not simply as a survivor of this tragedy in this northern BC community, but because there is incontrovertible evidence she's a hero. First there was testimony, then came the photographic evidence.
The bikers heard Maya was a fan of motorcycles because she rides a dirt bike of her own so they put together a Biker's Fundraising Ride, and this jam raised nearly $4,000 for Maya's benefit that afternoon. That's how this amazing girl's story continues to unfold. The terrible sadness of the losses in Tumbler Ridge need to be acknowledged, as they are all cherished and missed, including by Maya herself:
