(CNN) — A Southern California woman who was wounded in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting has died of her injuries, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Coroner Department said.
Kimberly Gervais, 57, of Mira Loma, California, was one of the more than 500 people injured when Stephen Paddock opened fire from his hotel room on the Route 9 Harvest Music Festival on October 1, 2017.
Fifty-eight people were killed in the attack, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Gervais’ death marks the 59th fatality attributed to the tragedy.
Gervais suffered spinal injuries and had been recovering at a nursing facility in Redlands, California, the coroner said in a statement Monday.
An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause and manner of death, the statement said.
Dena Sarvela, Gervais’ sister, told CNN affiliate KPTV her sister died Friday night. “She is, was, she still is… she’ll never leave my heart, ever,” Sarvela said.
Gervais went to the festival with two other friends, one of whom was killed in the shooting, Sarvela told KPTV.
The night before the festival, Sarvela says Gervais told her she was ready to sell her business, retire and enjoy her life, KPTV reported.”She worked her life, and butt off for — just to go enjoy, you know, and she doesn’t get that, she doesn’t get that chance,” Sarvela said.
She said that Gervais had been in pain despite being paralyzed from the neck up in the shooting, the affiliate reported. “There was scrap metal still in her because he used exploding bullets,” Sarvela explained.
Her sister said she is comforted by the thought that Gervais can join her late husband, who died in 2000.
“I also know she was missing her husband very, very much, and that’s what gives me hope — that she’s with him right now,” Sarvela said.
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