Tumbler Ridge resident Dennis Campbell dropped his 12-year-old daughter Quinn off at school on Tuesday, while his son Seth, 15, walked to class.

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“Everything was good. We were having a great day. As normal as normal could be,” said Campbell, president of the Tumbler Ridge Minor Hockey Association.

Tumbler Ridge: How a day of horror and tragedy unfolded Back to video

Indeed, Feb. 10 started just like every other day for most families in this northeastern B.C. town. Teachers went to work, parents kissed their children goodbye.

But Campbell, like many other families in this tight-knit community of 2,500 people, would face unimaginable tragedy by day’s end.

Eight people were killed by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who had a history of mental health interactions with police. The transgender woman began transitioning six years ago and dropped out of school four years ago, said RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald.

The victims include a female teacher, 39, and five students inside Tumbler Ridge Secondary, three girls and two boys all 12 or 13 years old. Van Rootselaar’s mother, 39, and 11-year-old stepbrother had been shot dead inside the family home earlier that day.

It was one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history.

Although Campbell is grateful his own children survived, he is grieving for the other victims who he knew through hockey or other sports in the community.

“My daughter lost four friends that day,” the distraught man said. “I’ve been crying all day.”

Shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday, Campbell received a call from his daughter Quinn, who is in Grade 7. She told her dad “there were shots fired in the school” but then the call abruptly ended.

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The frantic father would later learn Quinn ran into the gym, where she hid in the equipment room with Grade 10 and 11 students. Campbell praised a teacher for checking in on the students to ensure they were OK throughout the tense situation.

By 1:20 pm, police received reports of an active shooter at the school. Shots were fired at officers as they approached the building, but they didn’t return fire, said McDonald.

Inside, officers found Van Rootselaar dead of a self-inflicted gunshot would.

The horror of the scene continued to unfold. One murder victim was lying in a stairwell, others were in the library.

From her vantage point in the Tumbler Ridge health centre where she works, Shelley Quist could see a RCMP officer with his gun drawn, crouched in a parking lot near the high school. A co-worker had to stop her from running to the school, where her son Darian, 17, had texted a few minutes earlier to say the building had been locked down.

A loud alarm sounded after Darian reached his mechanics classroom. The students used tables to barricade the classroom doors and made plans to escape through the garage door if needed.

Darian, Quist said, initially thought the alarm was just a drill, until he got texts from other students that there was a shooter in the school. Quist was on the phone with her son through out this ordeal, leaving her feeling terrified and helpless.

Darian was not injured in the melee, but in addition to the six people killed in the school, 27 others were hurt. Two girls were flown to hospital where they were in critical condition as of Wednesday afternoon. The remainder were treated at the local health clinic.

Cia Edmonds’ daughter Maya Gebala is in B.C. Children’s Hospital, fighting for her life, she posted on Facebook.

“We were warned that the damage to her brain was too much for her to endure, and she wouldn’t make the night,” Cia posted on Wednesday. “Our baby needs a miracle.”

The grieving mother added: “Our community is shattered … My heart bleeds for everyone who is trying to process this horrific string of events.”

Other families are in mourning.

Abel Mwansa picked up his backpack at 8:20 a.m. Tuesday and left his family home, heading for school. He asked his father to pick him up that evening from a church youth group.

Instead, the family learned they would never again see their hard-working son, who loved school. “My son, I treasured the moment(s) I spent with you,” Mwansa’s father, also named Abel, posted on Facebook. “You were a great son, still remain a great one to me.”

The boy’s mother, Bwalya Chisanga, added, “I can’t handle this pain, is too much.”

Family members of other victims also posted tributes to their loved ones.

Thirteen-year-old Eziekiel Schofield was killed in the shooting, according to a Facebook post by his grandfather Peter Schofield.

“Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing,” he posted Wednesday.

“So many young lives were ended so needlessly. Our hearts are broken not only for Eziekiel, but for every family affected by this tragedy.”

In a post on GoFundMe, Shanon Dycke, the aunt of 12-year-old Kylie Smith, said her family received the “gut-wrenching news” that Kylie was killed on Tuesday.

“We are completely devastated and have no words as we try to process the magnitude of the situation,” she said, adding Kylie was a “beautiful, kind, innocent soul.”

Campbell and his daughter Quinn knew all the victims.

Quinn played soccer with Abel, who Campbell described as “a good, kind-hearted soul”.

Eziekiel, who played hockey, was “an amazing child” who always had a smile on his face, Campbell said.

Maya is one of Quinn’s best friends, and she’s known Kylie since they were both in diapers. “She’s devastated,” he said of his daughter.

Another young student who is fighting to recovery in hospital is named Paige, according to a GoFundMe post by her brother Nicholas Hoekstra.

“Paige was airlifted to Vancouver where she suffers with a severe injury due to a gunshot wound,” he posted. “Please keep Paige in your prayers.”

Later Tuesday afternoon, police got a call from a Tumbler Ridge resident who had gone by her neighbour’s home and discovered the shooter’s mother and stepbrother dead inside.

Police said they are still investigating a motive for the tragedy, which has touched nearly everyone in this community.

Quist left the health centre Tuesday afternoon and drove home. She locked the doors and sat in the basement with her other son while speaking with Darian throughout the time he was barricaded in his classroom.

After about 2½ hours into the call with Darian, he told Quist he had to put his phone down. She could hear yelling and banging as the RCMP tactical team kicked in the classroom door.

Darian and his classmates were told to leave the school with their hands above their heads and escorted to the community centre.

“I heard that, and I ran,” said Quist. Mother and son were reunited at the community centre, where she pulled him into a big hug.

Campbell was also reunited with his children, who remained locked down in the school until early evening. It was a massive relief, because he couldn’t reach either Quinn or Seth all afternoon.

“It was so terrifying,” he said.

Some teachers, who lost a colleague in the shooting, posted on social media that they were OK after the lockdown was cancelled Tuesday evening.

Teacher Jarbas Noronha posted on Facebook that he was safe, but added “I don’t wish on any school age child to have to go through what my students went through today.”

Earlier Tuesday, Anna Kunll had seen students at Tumbler Ridge Secondary outside during their lunch hour, as if it were any other day.

“They went back in, and then the unthinkable happened,” she said. “No one would have known what was coming.”

The 19-year-old former student, who was visiting family in Tumbler Ridge, later learned her friend’s sister had been shot and killed.

She wanted to offer support and condolences. “I really hope they can get the support they need.”

Kunll said she’d been crying on and off since she heard the news.

“My question is why,” she said.

Local journalist Trent Ernst there’s been a “mixed” reaction in the community, most grieving but others using it as a “political hot potato.”

“There are people out there whose hearts are breaking for this community, who are doing what they can to help, who are doing what they can to spread kindness and love.

Ernst said a tragedy like this affects everyone in a town so small.

“There’s that six degrees of separation that people talk about. In Tumbler Ridge, it’s one degree, two degrees at most. Everybody knows everybody or knows somebody who knows everybody. So that makes it really hard.”

He said he’s known Maya, who’s fighting for her life in hospital, for years in his role as the photographer for the Tumbler Ridge Raptors hockey team.

“It was such a gut punch. We had the winter carnival a few weeks back and I bumped into her there, and she was joking around and being a little bit mischievous because that’s who she was.”

Some members of the community were being hailed as heroes for helping to save the lives of their fellow residents.

“I want to thank the brave teachers, administrators, students and first responders who acted selflessly, putting their own safety aside to help those in need and to prevent further tragedy,” Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka.

The tragedy has reached nearly every person in the community.

“Lives have been lost, others have been forever changed, and our hearts remain with the families and community as a whole experiencing unimaginable pain,” said Nicole Noksana, chair of the school’s parent advisory council.

“In a close-knit community like Tumbler Ridge, this loss is felt deeply by us all.”

lculbert@postmedia.com

sip@postmedia.com

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