Survivor of Columbine High School shooting Anne Marie Hochhalter dies
By Christa Swanson
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COLORADO (KCNC) — One of the survivors of the shooting at Colorado’s Columbine High School has died. Anne Marie Hochhalter passed away Sunday. The principal at the time, Frank DeAngelis, confirmed her death with CBS Colorado on Monday.
She was shot and paralyzed in that massacre back in 1999. Hochhalter was a junior at the time of the shooting and was eating lunch when she suffered a gunshot wound to her chest and another to her spinal cord. The shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot and killed 12 classmates, a teacher, and then themselves.
Hochhalter advocated for victims of mass violence, attending a vigil for the victims of the Aurora theater massacre in 2012. She said she wanted to offer hope to the victims’ loved ones and survivors. At the vigil, she advised that “trying to figure out the shooters’ motives was a waste of time, and it gives them exactly what they want.”
She forgave Klebold’s mother, who released a book about her own experience, stating she was happy the profits from the book would be donated to charities focused on mental health.
Six months after the tragic shooting, Hochhalter’s mother Carla, who suffered from bipolar disorder, took her own life after asking to look at a gun in a pawnshop and turning it on herself.
On the 25th anniversary of the shooting, Hochhalter posted on Facebook, “This anniversary has been the most healing for me. 25 years have gone by but it doesn’t seem that long. I wasn’t able to attend the ceremony for the 20th anniversary 5 years ago due to PTSD, but I attended the vigil last night. I’ve truly been able to heal my soul since that awful day in 1999.”
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