Columbine Survivor Dies at 43

A woman left paralyzed by the Columbine school shooting has died at age 43, reports the Denver Post. Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was shot in the back in the 1999 shooting and needed a wheelchair for the rest of her life, died of natural causes, said Frank DeAngelis, who was the Columbine principal at the time of the shooting, per 9News. "Still in shock," he said. Another acquaintance—Sue Townsend, the mother of Lauren Townsend, a classmate killed in the shooting—tells the Post that Hochhalter may have died from medical complications related to her injuries. She was found in her home in Westminster, Colorado.

"She was fiercely independent," says Townsend, who befriended Hochhalter after the shooting and remained close over the years. "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." Hochhalter became an advocate for other victims of mass shootings and their families, as well as for those with disabilities. A footnote to the tragedy: Hochhalter's mother, Carla, took her own life six months after the school shooting. (More Columbine school shooting stories.)