Handmade cards from classmates comfort a girl wounded in Minneapolis church shooting, aunt says

Located in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit, Geneviève Bisek, 11, is comforted by the many cards made by hand that she received from their classmates after the Wednesday shooting in a church in Minneapolis.

Some are decorated with pearls, others with sparkling stars. All are glued to the walls of her room at Hennepin County Medical Center, where she recovered. His condition was made from critical to satisfactory.

“All these handmade cards are absolutely adorable and sincere,” the Geneviève aunt told Wanda Stipek, to the Associated Press in a telephone interview on Saturday. “It comes from other children who also have their own trauma and who are still trying and showing their love for her. She has these cards stuck on the walls in her room so that she can see him and be surrounded by this love. ”

Geneviève was one of the 20 people who were killed during the attack on the Annunciation church, while hundreds of students from the Catholic School of Annunciation Voisine and others gathered for a mass. The shooter pulled 116 rounds of rifle through the church stained glass windows, making two dead students and 18 people were injured, almost all children. The shooter, Robin Westman, 23, died by suicide.

At least seven people were still in the hospital on Saturday. A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Medical Center said five children were treated, four of whom in satisfactory condition and one in critical condition, as well as an adult who was in serious condition. A spokesperson for the Minnesota children’s hospital – Minneapolis said the doctors had treated a patient.

Geneviève, a sixth year student at the Catholic school who loves animals and plays outside, was aware after the shooting, said Stipek. After the authorities erased the church with danger, she was gathered with other children to assess their injuries and was brought to the hospital in an ambulance with another injured student, she said.

The medical staff put in sedation Geneviève until Thursday.

“Geneviève is a very sensitive and compassionate little girl,” said Stipek. “When she woke up from her sedation after the event, the first thing she wanted to talk about, she asked questions about other children.”

Stipek said Geneviève said to her mother, “I can’t say that I want it not happened to me because I don’t want it to have anyone else either.”

Stipek said Geneviève had not yet been informed who died. She said that one of the students killed, Fletcher Merkel, 8, was a neighbor and friend of the family.

The cards made by hand and other efforts to support the community, including ribbons attached around the trees in the neighborhood and online donations, helped the family to face their trauma, said Stipek.

“I think that sometimes, when something terrible as this happens, you consider the world as a scary and dangerous place full of bad people. But we are very moved by kindness, “she said. “All these things show love and support, and all this helps us know that there is a goodness. I think that is part of the healing process. It is important for us to remind us that the world is always full of good people.”