A 13-year-old girl just left the hospital after 262 days because every system meant to protect her broke down — and the only answer anyone in power offers is more gun control.

Maya Gebala was shot three times, including in the head, when 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar opened fire at a secondary school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, on February 10. Eight people died, including six children, making it Canada's deadliest school shooting in decades, according to CNN. Maya was in the school library. Parts of her skull were shattered. Doctors told her family she would not survive the night, her father David Gebala wrote on Facebook.

She survived. Five surgeries, including a prosthetic skull. It took 251 days before she could open an eye and move a leg — only to be rushed back into emergency surgery. It took 145 days for her to smile. It took 61 days ago for her father to hear her voice again.

"You refused to accept the words we heard 262 days ago when you came out of the OR," Gebala wrote. "Look at you, my girl. You blew every expectation out of the water."

That is the human cost. Now follow the failures.

Van Rootselaar used ChatGPT to plan the massacre. OpenAI staff flagged his account internally for violent activities. The company deactivated that account in June 2025, according to CNN. But Van Rootselaar simply made a second account and kept using the chatbot. Nobody at OpenAI called law enforcement. CEO Sam Altman later apologized to the community of Tumbler Ridge for failing to notify authorities about the shooter's disturbing conversations with the AI, CNN reported.

An internal flag. A closed account. A new account. No call to police. Eight people dead.

Maya's mother, Cia Edmonds, filed a criminal complaint against OpenAI on her daughter's behalf. It is one of dozens of lawsuits filed against the company in U.S. and Canadian courts by victims, survivors, and witnesses. The province of British Columbia is also suing. An OpenAI spokesperson told CNN the company has a "zero-tolerance policy for using our tools to assist in committing violence." That policy did not stop a flagged user from opening a new account.

Neither outlet asked the questions that matter. Why are schools soft targets with no armed protection? Where was the mental health intervention for an 18-year-old plotting mass murder with an AI chatbot? How does a company flag a user for violent activity, shut his account, and then let him sign right back up — without calling the police?

The Gebala family thanked the nurses, doctors, and therapists who walked every step. "Now it's time to leave these hospital walls behind and keep moving forward, Maya Bear," her father wrote. He called her "the bravest person I know."

She is. Bravery should not have been required. A 13-year-old girl spent 262 days in a hospital because adults with the power to stop a killer chose not to. OpenAI flagged a threat and kept it internal. A shooter gamed their system. A school remained unprotected. And the only policy conversation anyone wants to have is about the gun — not the failures that put it in a killer's hands and left a child with a prosthetic skull.

262 days. What changed?