A survivor of the Columbine High School massacre has died 25 years after being shot and paralyzed.
Anne Marie Hochhalter, 43, was shot in the back and nearly died in the 1999 high school massacre
Anne Marie Hochhalter, 43, was found dead at her home in Westminster, Colo., on Sunday, Feb. 16, the Denver Post reports.
Sue Townsend, the stepmother of Columbine victim Lauren Townsend, who became close to Hochhalter after the attack, told the outlet her death appeared to be related to complications from medical issues stemming from injuries sustained in the shooting.
“She was a fighter. She’d get knocked down — she struggled a lot with health issues that stemmed from the shooting — but I’d watch her pull herself back up,” Townsend told the Denver Post. “She was her best advocate and an advocate for others who weren’t as strong in the disability community.”
Hochhalter was a 17-year-old junior at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, when two students opened fire on their classmates and teachers, killing 13 people and injuring 23 before turning their weapons on themselves.
Hochhalter suffered devastating injuries. She told PEOPLE in 2004 that she had just stepped outside for fresh air when she heard a popping noise and suddenly felt something strike her back, which she initially believed was a paintball.
As a friend helped her, she was struck again by a bullet, which this time hit a vein.
“I was bleeding to death,” Hochhalter said. “It didn’t look bad on the outside, but inside it felt wrong — it felt wet.”
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Hochhalter was left paralyzed by the attack and used a wheelchair for the rest of her life. But she nonetheless considered herself one of the lucky ones.
“If the ambulance had come two minutes later — even two minutes — I would have died,” Hochhalter told PEOPLE. “A lot of evil happened that day, but a lot of things went so right.”
The tragedy was compounded for Hochhalter six months later, when her mother died by suicide. The mother walked into a pawn shop and asked to see a revolver before fatally shooting herself.
Hochhalter, a multi-instrumentalist, played the clarinet, piano, guitar and harp, per the Denver Post. She also loved dogs, fostering and owning many over the years.
In 2016, Susan Klebold, the mother of one of the shooters, apologized for the actions of her son. Hochhalter posted an open letter saying she forgave the mother.
“I have no ill-will towards you,” Hochhalter wrote. “Just as I wouldn’t want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard.”
“I have forgiven you and only wish you the best.”
In one of her final Facebook posts, on the 25th anniversary of the shooting, Hochhalter wrote that while she had previously avoided memorial services due to PTSD, she had attended the anniversary vigil and found the occasion “most healing.”
“I’ve truly been able to heal my soul since that awful day in 1999,” she wrote, noting that she felt the presence of the 13 victims “sitting there, with smiles on their faces, wanting us to remember the good times.”
