A somber yet celebratory homecoming as the last Annunciation Church shooting victim goes home.
Sophia Forchas was shot in the head on August 27 in the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis. It is good news many didn't think was possible.
"I'm gonna be blunt, Sophia is still in critical condition in the intensive care unit. There's a chance that she's maybe the third fatality," a doctor said about her condition in September, more than two weeks after she was shot.
This Thursday, that had changed to joy.
WCCO's Susie Jones has confirmed that Forchas left Gillette Children's Hospital in a limousine and she went to school, "to see her friends and family and teachers."
Dr. Walt Galicich, the doctor at Hennepin County Medical Center who performed surgery on Forchas, explained at a press conference on September 12 just how dire her circumstances were at the time.
"I noticed her blue nail polish, the curly hair, and I opened her eyes and she was bilaterally fixed and dilated." Dr. Galicich explains. "Which means that her pressure in her brain was very high. And if you had told me at this juncture, 10 days later, that we'd be standing here with any ray of hope, I would have said it would take a miracle."
"She looked great, it's joyful, joyful, happy, beautiful, incredible," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on Thursday. "I mean, strong, resilient, every possible superlative that I could attach."
Since then, her family has reported that she has made steady progress. Forchas' mother Amy and father Tom say "her resilience continues to inspire hope at every step if the way," and that Sophia is "strong, brave, and unwavering in her fight toward healing."
On Thursday, she left Gillette Children's hospital in St. Paul, where she was given a police escort with many others including paramedics from Hennepin County Medical Center joining the procession to honor Sophia and support her in healing journey.
"I mean she's incredible and a complete inspiration there for everyone," Frey said about Forchas. "I know everybody that I talked to is like, you know, she's just so affable and caring and so she's got a whole community right now that is behind her. And it's really an incredible miracle to see her back."
Forchas was the most seriously wounded child among those who survived at Annunciation. She had a bullet lodged in her brain, which caused severe damage, including to a major blood vessel. Surgeons had to remove the left half of her skull to relieve the pressure inside her head.
“If you had told me at this juncture, 10 days later, that we’d be standing here with any ray of hope, I would have said it would take a miracle,” her neurosurgeon, Dr. Walt Galicich told reporters in September.
He said they were banking on the ability of young brains to heal and make up for the damage, and that good news appeared to come to fruition this week.
Two children, Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski were killed in the shooting with many others including children and parishioners injured.