Teacher Shot in Classroom by 6-Year-Old Testifies About Experience: 'I Thought I Had Died' By Liam Quinn

The Virginia teacher who was shot in a classroom by a 6-year-old in 2023 testified that she thought she had died after being hit by the bullet.

“I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Abby Zwerner testified, according to the Associated Press. “But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn’t going there. And then my next memory is I see two co-workers around me and I process that I’m hurt and they’re putting pressure on where I’m hurt.”

Zwerner is now suing the former assistant principal of the school she taught at in Newport News, Va., accusing her of not doing enough to prevent the shooting.

PEOPLE previously reported that Zwerner was shot at Richneck Elementary School by the 6-year-old boy in January 2023.

The $40 million lawsuit claims that Zwerner suffers from “physical pain and mental anguish” since the shooting.

The AP reported that Zwerner says she has no plans to teach again.

“…Abby was shot by a six-year-old student, and she will never be the same,” Zwerner’s attorney, Diane Toscano, said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed. “She has endured four surgeries and still has a bullet lodged inside her.”

The civil complaint alleges that four different people came forward about the student to the assistant principal, Ebony Parker, and that multiple people had seen the gun on the day of the shooting.

Toscano claimed in opening statements, per the AP, that Parker did not act on her authority to search the student or remove him from school.

Parker’s attorney, Daniel Hogan, urged the jurors not to engage in “hindsight bias” when judging this case.

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“No one could have imagined that a 6-year old, first-grade student would bring a firearm into a school,” Hogan said, according to the AP. “You will be able to judge for yourself whether or not this was foreseeable. That’s the heart of this case.”

According to Virginia court records, Parker is also facing child abuse charges connected to the incident, in addition to the civil suit.

The AP, ABC News and The Virginian-Pilot reported that the child’s mother was previously sentenced to nearly four years in prison on child neglect charges and federal gun charges.