The First Survivor

An unflinching memoir that reframes a national tragedy and demands we reckon with the cost of ignoring intimate partner violence.

On April 18, 2020, Lisa Banfield's life shattered.

After nineteen years in a controlling and often abusive relationship, she escaped a violent assault by her partner, Gabriel Wortman–unaware he was about to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in Canadian history. In The First Survivor, Banfield tells her story for the first time: of being groomed and surviving years of intimate partner violence, and of the horrific night she fled barefoot into the freezing woods as Wortman began a murderous rampage that left twenty-two people and an unborn child dead.

Told with raw honesty and courage, Banfield's memoir is more than a personal account of life with a man she tried to heal–it's a call to action. With intimate reflections and her own transformation, she exposes the failures in how society sees, supports, and judges survivors of domestic abuse.

This is a powerful story of trauma, survival, and one woman's journey reclaiming her voice and redefining her life.