Parkland shooting survivor Donovan Metayer dies at age 26

The mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 claimed another victim, seven years later, with the suicide of a student who initially survived the carnage, his family said.

Donovan Metayer, a high school senior at the Parkland, Florida, school, managed to escape physically unharmed when shooter and former student Nikolas Cruz, then 19, killed 14 students and three staff members with an assault rifle on Valentine’s Day 2018, and injured 17 others.

But the youngster was never the same, his family said after he took his own life last week aged 26.

“The trauma of that day and the loss of his classmates lingered long after his graduation and profoundly altered the course of his life,” his family said in an online fundraising appeal. “In the months that followed, Donny began to withdraw. Depression, guilt, emotional instability and long periods of isolation replaced the vibrant young man we once knew.”

Gone was the “radiant child” whose brilliance and curiosity made him a remarkable scholar “with an intellect matched only by a magnetic humor and warmth that could light up any room, effortlessly,” his family said. This was overshadowed by his deteriorating mental health, marked by numerous hospitalizations for suicidal ideation, which dashed his dreams of college and a career in computer science.

Nancy Metayer Bowen mourned her “little brother” in a social media post Saturday, saying he “took his own life after a seven-year battle with schizophrenia.”

The family will use part of the money raised to establish a fund at the Henderson Clinic, where Donovan was most recently treated, to help people who are struggling mentally and face barriers to care.

As of 2021, Donovan had been prevented from purchasing a firearm under the state’s Baker Act, which allows for the temporary detention of a person for mental health reasons. But he bought a gun as soon as the order expired, his family said, and “a week later he would use that same handgun to kill himself in our family home.”

Donovan was the third Parkland survivor to commit suicide. Sydney Aiello committed suicide a year after the massacre, at the age of 19, and days later, 16-year-old sophomore Calvin Desir did the same.

With news feed services