A former New Hampshire resident with ties to Maine and Vermont was among those injured in Wednesday's shooting in San Bernardino, California.
The Keene Sentinel reports that 31-year-old Amanda Gaspard was one of those shot at the holiday party for the Division of Environmental Health Services of the San Bernardino County Health Department, where she works as a health education specialist. She moved to San Bernardino in 2012.
Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene confirmed that Gaspard worked there from 2009 to 2012 as an emergency preparedness coordinator for the Greater Monadnock Public Health Network. Her parents, Ken and Diane Gaspard, live in nearby Hinsdale, and her father is the hospital's director of surgical services.
"These horrendous occurrences that seem so far away, have this time clearly touched us as a community," said Dr. Don Caruso, the hospital's CEO/president and chief medical officer. "All of us at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene are keeping Amanda, her dad Ken and mom Diane and family, and all of the other victims in our thoughts and prayers."
Amanda Gaspard also has relatives in Millinocket, Maine, according to the Bangor Daily News. Family members told the newspaper that she suffered shrapnel wounds to her head in the attack but is going to be OK.
"My niece is alive and out of surgery. She was badly wounded but has been successfully brought out of surgery and will recover," Gaspard's aunt, Joyce McLean, said in a Facebook post.
My niece is alive and out of surgery. She was badly wounded but has been successfully brought out of surgery and will...
Posted by Joyce McLean on Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Local
Gaspard's parents are members of Mountain View Church in Vermont, according to a post on the Northern New England Conference of Seventh-day Adventists' Facebook page. Her mother, Diane, posted a message to that Facebook page Wednesday saying she and her husband were flying to California to be with their daughter.
"Her faith is so strong," Diane Gaspard wrote. "She was praying with other victims while she was lying there bleeding. We Praise God for sparing her life."
AMANDA GASPARD, DAUGHTER OF VERMONT CHURCH MEMBERS, INJURED IN SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING, PRAYED FOR OTHER VICTIMS WHILE...
Posted by Northern New England Conference of Seventh-day Adventists on Thursday, December 3, 2015
Blue Mountain Academy in Pennsylvania, where Amanda Gaspard graduated from in 2002, also posted a message to its Facebook page on Wednesday wishing her support.
Fourteen people were killed and 21 wounded in the rampage at the holiday party, according to authorities. Police said they expect to begin releasing names and photographs of the victims later on Thursday.
Two suspects in the shooting, a man and a woman, are dead following a police chase and shootout, according to San Bernardino police. They were identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, who worked for the San Bernardino County's health department, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. The pair were wearing "assault-style" clothing and armed with assault rifles and handguns, police said.
