A Southern California woman who suffered spinal injuries when she was wounded during the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting died late last week, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Coroner Department on Monday.
Kimberly Gervais, 57, of Mira Loma, had been recovering at a nursing facility in Redlands, California, reports CNN. She was one of more than 500 people who were injured Oct. 1, 2017, after Stephen Paddock opened fire from his hotel room at people attending the Route 9 Harvest Music Festival.
She will undergo an autopsy to determine if her death was directly caused by the shooting, according to the coroner's office. Depending on the findings, Gervais could be the 59th fatality from the deadly attack.
Her nephew, Stephan Rudolph, told NBC affiliate KSNV in Las Vegas that Gervais was hit in the upper spine, leaving her paralyzed from the neck down. She stayed at least a year in a Las Vegas hospital before being able to go home to California.
Rudolph said, even though she was paralyzed, Gervais remained in serious physical pain, compounded by the fact she saw her best friend "die right in front of her. The recovery from that was probably just as hard as her actual physical recovery."
He added, Gervais ended up with some heart problems at the end of her life, and he believes that was caused by the stress of her injuries.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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