The call came at exactly 2:18 p.m. on February 10, 2026—a five-second fragment of terror that would haunt Dennis Campbell forever. His 12-year-old daughter Quinn, a Grade 7 student at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in the remote British Columbia mountain town, whispered into the phone with a voice trembling so violently it barely carried. “Dad, something terrible is happening at school…”

Dennis, at home just minutes away, felt his world tilt. Before he could respond, Quinn’s plea cut through: “Don’t come here, Dad.” Then the line went dead.

Those few seconds replay endlessly in his mind. At the five-second mark, he heard three chilling words buried in the background chaos—barely audible amid distant screams and what he now knows were gunshots. The final detail Quinn managed to convey before the connection severed has become the moment he says he will never escape: she told him she could see “someone with a gun” moving through the halls, and classmates were trying to barricade a door. The fear in her voice, the abrupt silence that followed—it was the sound of a father’s worst nightmare unfolding in real time.

Tumbler Ridge, a small coal-mining community of about 2,400 people nestled in the northern Rockies, had always felt safe. Families knew each other by name; children walked to school together; the secondary school served as the heart of the town for Grades 7–12. That Tuesday afternoon shattered that illusion forever.

At approximately 2:20 p.m. local time (MST), 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar entered the building armed with two firearms. Earlier that day, the shooter had killed her 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, and 11-year-old half-brother, Emmett Jacobs, at their nearby home before driving to the school—a former student who had dropped out around four years prior. Once inside, Van Rootselaar opened fire, killing six people—five students (three girls and two boys, all aged 12–13) and one female educator—and wounding 27 others before dying by suicide.

The attack ranks as Canada’s deadliest school shooting since the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal and one of the country’s worst mass shootings overall since the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks. It left the nation stunned, prompting vigils, national tributes, and renewed discussions on gun violence, mental health, and school safety—even in a country with strict firearm laws.

For Dennis Campbell, the hours after that call were an eternity of agony. He rushed toward the school but was stopped by police cordons as roads were blocked and parents gathered in desperate clusters. Rumors swirled in the chaos; misinformation spread rapidly online before official updates could clarify the horror. Dennis waited, heart pounding, scanning every child evacuated, praying Quinn had made it out. She had—running to the gym with classmates and hiding in an equipment room as teachers shielded students.

When Quinn was finally reunited with her father, she collapsed into his arms, sobbing. She had witnessed things no child should ever see: friends falling, blood on the floor, the shooter moving methodically. She told her dad she heard the shots through the phone; she saw the gunman through a cracked door before they barricaded it. Those images, Dennis says, are burned into her. “She keeps replaying it,” he later shared. “The screams, the bangs, the moment everything went quiet. She asks why it happened, why her friends.”

The Campbell family—Dennis, Quinn, and her older brother Seth (15, who attended the same school but was in a different area)—has been surrounded by community support. Neighbors brought food, offered hugs, sat in silence when words failed. Tumbler Ridge rallied: candlelight vigils lit the snowy streets, makeshift memorials of flowers, teddy bears, and drawings grew outside the school, and portable classrooms arrived to help students resume learning in safer conditions.

Quinn’s bravery in that call—warning her dad, trying to protect him—mirrors the courage shown by classmates who barricaded doors or shielded others. Yet the trauma lingers. Counselors have been on-site, helping children process the grief, fear, and survivor’s guilt. Dennis describes nights when Quinn wakes screaming, convinced the shooter is still coming. He holds her, whispers that she’s safe now, but the silence after her call still echoes in his ears.

The broader community grapples with collective shock. Tumbler Ridge is small enough that many families knew the victims personally—classmates, neighbors, friends. The shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, had lived in town her whole life; police noted prior mental health contacts at the residence. Her biological father issued a statement expressing sorrow and distance from the events. National leaders visited, laying wreaths and meeting families, while the nation mourned a tragedy that felt impossibly distant yet achingly close.

For Dennis, the haunting detail is what Quinn saw in those final seconds before the line died: the gunman turning toward the library where her friends were hiding. “She said she saw the gun swing that way,” he recalls, voice breaking. “She thinks if she had stayed on the phone longer, maybe… but she did everything right. She survived. That’s what I hold onto.”

As Tumbler Ridge heals, the Campbells navigate a new reality. Dennis speaks publicly not for attention but to honor the lost and support others grieving. “Quinn’s voice in that call—shaking, brave—it’s the sound of survival,” he says. “But the silence after… that’s the part that never leaves.”

The town, forever changed, clings to memories of the children who should have come home that afternoon. And for one father, the five-second call at 2:18 p.m. remains the moment time stopped—and the fight to help his daughter heal began.