MINNEAPOLIS — A crowd gathered to see Sophia Forchas leave the hospital on Thursday. They were clapping and cheering for the 12-year-old who doctors weren't sure would survive.

Forchas was one of the students attending a back-to-school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church, right next to her school. On Aug. 27, a 23-year-old opened fire and shot more than 20 people. Two children, Harper Moyski and Fletcher Merkel , were killed.

Nine days after the shooting, Forchas' doctor told media she had been shot in the head and the bullet at the time was still lodged in her brain. The left half of her skull was removed to give her brain the room it needed to swell.

In a statement on Sept. 22, her family called her healing progress "nothing short of miraculous."

"Sophia is strong, brave, and

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