The teenage girl left for dead following a vicious machete attack earlier this week in Northern Ontario is in stable condition at an Ottawa hospital following brain surgery.
“Kaylie is awake, please respect her journey going forward (as) she will decide from here on out what to share,” Paige Smith wrote Friday in an update to a GoFundMe page set up to cover future costs for her cousin’s family.
The OPP’s Temiskaming detachment said officers responded to a motor vehicle collision at the intersection of Helen St. and Prospect Ave. in Cobalt on Sunday evening.
Police said an altercation occurred between an 18-year-old male and a 16-year-old female, who suffered life-threatening injuries.
According to the GoFundMe, the girl was getting off a bus after work and heading home.
However, at the bus stop was an ex-boyfriend sitting in his vehicle waiting until she began crossing the road to deliberately ram her with his vehicle, the family alleged.
“He then proceeded to get out and viciously attack her with a machete,” the fundraiser reads. “He severed her left hand, fractured her right arm and had it hanging on in ribbons. He proceeded to mutilate her, striking her body and head with the machete.”
She was airlifted to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario for treatment, enduring 16 hours of brain surgery.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
“Kaylie is strong and resilient and so, so loved,” the relative wrote. “We are praying and hoping for her recovery.”
Her attacker, named by the family as 18-year-old Phillip Rivard-Gagnon, was turned in to police by his mother in nearby Haileybury.
He is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, and breach of conditional sentence order.
He is currently in custody and is scheduled to make a court appearance Tuesday morning in Haileybury.
Family and community members have encouraged the public to rally for Kaylie by attending the hearing and to protest any chance for bail.
As for Kaylie, it will be a long road to recovery, which could be for the rest of her life, the family said.
“For now, we would like to let people know that Kaylie is still stable, the doctors, nurses, staff and family are in complete awe of her strength, resilience, and determination,” Smith shared. “She remains in ICU and at the time we request no visitors as its not allowed while she is in such a vulnerable state.
“As for recovery, nobody knows how that’s going to go, it’s much, much too early,” she continued. “This is a journey that will take months if not a lifetime for Kaylie to heal and overcome. We ask for privacy moving forward and we will notify public as … necessary but for right now we honestly don’t know. It’s too early, when someone is injured (of) this magnitude it will be touch and go for a long time and we need to focus on getting #justiceforkaylie.”
The GoFundMe, which has raised more than $75,000 as of Friday afternoon, will go toward covering fuel, hotels, meals, and other expenses for the family as the victim’s mother will be off work to be by her side.
The relative offered thanks on behalf of the family for the first responders, doctors, nurses, witnesses and anyone else who helped get the care Kaylie needed.
“We would also like to thank the community, the donors, the networks and vast amount of people reaching out to help and support Kaylie and the family in the wake of such a heinous and horrific attack,” Smith wrote.