Girl shot in head during Minneapolis church attack making 'miracle' progress, family says James Powel, USA TODAY September 24, 2025 at 2:11 AM 0 A 12yearold girl shot in the head during the deadly shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis is making "miraculous" progress, her family announced.
- - Girl shot in head during Minneapolis church attack making 'miracle' progress, family says
James Powel, USA TODAY September 24, 2025 at 2:11 AM
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A 12-year-old girl shot in the head during the deadly shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis is making "miraculous" progress, her family announced.
Sophia Forchas, who survived the deadly attack at Annunciation Catholic Church, is "showing promising signs of neurological recovery" and will be transitioned from acute care to an inpatient rehabilitation program, her family confirmed in a statement released by Hennepin Healthcare on Sept. 22.
"Sophia is strong, brave, and unwavering in her fight toward healing," her family added. "We ask that you continue to pray for her as she walks this road to recovery."
Sophia's younger brother was also at the school during the shooting, but he was unharmed, according to a GoFundMe organized for the family. Her mother, a pediatric critical care nurse at Hennepin County Medical Center, had arrived to work on Aug. 27 to help with wounded victims "before knowing it was her children's school that was attacked, and that her daughter was critically injured," the page added.
The GoFundMe has raised more than $1 million.
'On the brink of death'
In a statement released on Sept. 12, her family said doctors warned them that she was "on the brink of death." Dr. Walt Galicich, a neurosurgeon who treated Sophia, said in a news conference that she was shot in the left temporal lobe and the bullet remains lodged in the right occipital lobe.
Surgeons performed a decompressive craniectomy, essentially removing half of her skull to give the brain room to swell, Galicich confirmed.
"If you had told me at this juncture that 10 days later we'd be standing here with any ray of hope, I would have said, 'It would take a miracle,'" Galicich said at the news conference.
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Annunciation Catholic Church shooting
The deadly shooting occurred at Annunciation Catholic School, a private elementary school in Minneapolis with about 395 students, on Aug. 27, authorities said. According to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, the shooter approached the outside of the church building in the morning and fired inside toward the children sitting in pews.
The two children, ages 8 and 10, were killed in the shooting. Eighteen other people, 15 of them students ages 6 to 18 and three parishioners in their 80s, were struck by gunfire, authorities said.
The shooting suspect, identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene, O'Hara said.
Contributing: Thao Nguyen and Melina Khan, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Minneapolis church shooting victim is making a miraculous recovery
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