The family of Ella Whistler says she will remain at Riley Children’s Hospital for the foreseeable future, after a classmate shot her seven times inside a classroom at Noblesville West Middle School in May.
In a statement released Monday, the Whistler family detailed Ella’s life-threatening injuries for the first time.
The family says she was shot in the face, neck, hand, and chest. She sustained collapsed lungs, a broken jaw, broken clavicle, multiple broken vertebrae, broken ribs, a severed vertebral vein and significant nerve damage.
While Ella is in stable condition, her family says she faces a long recovery. A friend of the family set up a crowd funding page to help defray mounting medical expenses.
Science teacher Jason Seaman was also injured in the shooting. An unidentified student shot the teacher three times, before Seaman tackled and disarmed him. Seaman was not seriously injured and was released from the hospital the day after the shooting.
