The First Survivor (Pre-order)

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 Portapique and the surrounding counties of Nova Scotia.

Written by Lisa in collaboration with her sister, Maureen Banfield and veteran journalist and bestselling author Sherri Aikenhead, The First Survivor tells Lisa’s story for the first time. She recounts surviving years of intimate partner violence and 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 – it is 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. The First Survivor is a powerful story of trauma, survival, and one woman’s journey reclaiming her voice and redefining her life.