NOBLESVILLE, Ind. (WTHR) — The 13-year-old girl who was shot in the Noblesville West Middle School shooting is currently in stable condition.
Her parents released a statement on June 4, 2018, stating that their daughter had been shot seven times in the face, neck, hand, and upper chest.
After undergoing life-saving surgery she is continuing to make progress but "faces a long road to recovery."
In the days after the shooting, several fundraisers have been started to help benefit Whistler and teacher Jason Seaman, who tackled the student who opened fire in a classroom. Friends of the Whistler family have started GoFundMe accounts to help her family with medical expenses and to help Ella "physically and emotionally" during her recovery.
Noblesville Schools have also created a fund to help the Whistler and Seaman families through First Merchants Bank. Donations can be sent to Noblesville Schools Education Foundation at P.O. Box 724, Noblesville, IN 46061. You may also donate online here.
The Noblesville High School baseball team is selling t-shirts to help raise money for the various funds, as well. You can order a shirt online by visiting this link.
Read the family's full statement here:
Ella and her family deeply appreciate the outpouring of support, concern, and prayers from friends, family, and the community. Ella suffered very serious, life-threatening injuries from being shot 7 times in the face, neck, hand, and upper chest area. She underwent emergency, life-saving surgery after being airlifted to Riley, and her injuries include collapsed lungs; a broken jaw, clavicle, multiple neck vertebras, and ribs; a severed vertebral vein; significant nerve damage; and numerous related injuries.
Ella’s parents are proud of her incredible bravery and strength in facing this unspeakable tragedy. Ella’s current condition is stable. She continues to make progress but faces a long road to recovery. She will remain an inpatient at Riley Hospital for the foreseeable future, where she is receiving exceptional care from her medical team. She hopes to eventually return to her favorite activities of volleyball, cheerleading, and show choir.
If you would like to show your support for Ella, you can post words of encouragement or make donations at https://www.gofundme.com/ella-whistler to help with the enormous medical and other expenses caused by Ella’s injuries. Ella and her family respectfully request privacy at this difficult time so they can focus on Ella’s treatment and recovery.
The Whistlers shared their daughter's journey of healing by detailing what she went through the day police say a classmate opened fire in her classroom at Noblesville West Middle School. The shooting injured Ella and Seaman, who's credited with taking down the gunman before he hurt anyone else.
While Ella continues to recover, the Noblesville community is still recovering, too.
"You just never think it will happen in your community. You know it can, but it's just sad it did," Lora Essington, a parent.
Essington said she couldn't imagine being in the Whistlers' shoes. She said she knows how scary it's been to even talk about what happened with her 6-year-old son, who just finished kindergarten in a building on lockdown the day of the shooting.
"He knew," she said. "He said 'there was a bad man outside of our school, but if we had a code red it would have meant that the bad man was a lot closer.' He didn't know too many details, but I just thought they handled it really well," she said of the district's efforts.
It's a situation Essington said she wishes they'd never had to go through in the first place.