Graphic Content Warning: This report includes police body-camera footage from the aftermath of a school shooting.

A Virginia elementary school teacher, who was shot by her 6-year-old student, recounted the harrowing experience to jurors, sharing that she “thought she was dead.” Newly released police body-camera footage reveals the chaos that unfolded following the 2023 classroom shooting.

Abby Zwerner, 25 at the time of the incident, took the stand on Thursday to describe how a typical school day spiraled into a life-threatening ordeal when a first-grade student fired a 9-millimeter handgun. The bullet pierced her left hand and lodged in her chest, narrowly missing her heart.

“The last thing I remember at the school, I thought I was dying. I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven,” Zwerner testified in court. “Then it all went black. So, then I thought I wasn’t going there.”

Zwerner has initiated a $40 million lawsuit against former school administrator Ebony Parker, accusing her of gross negligence for ignoring multiple warnings about the possibility of the child bringing a gun to school. The lawsuit claims that colleagues, including the guidance counselor, music teacher, and reading specialist, had all expressed concerns about the boy before the shooting took place.

In a courtroom scene captured on Tuesday, October 28, 2025, Abby Zwerner, a former teacher at Richneck Elementary School, reflects during her civil lawsuit trial in Newport News, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Zwerner also recalled the chilling moment she locked eyes with the boy just before the gun went off.

“It was a blank look,” she said. “But it wasn’t a blank look at all.”

Now, nearly two years later, Zwerner said she still struggles with simple physical tasks. Over lunch with her attorney, she remembered trying to open a small bag of potato chips, tugging at it from several angles before giving up.

“I eventually asked you to open it,” she told her lawyer on the stand. “It’s the same thing with water bottles.”

Abby Zwerner’s attorney Diane Toscano confers with her colleague Jeffrey Breit during Zwerner’s lawsuit Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va.  (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

The psychological wounds, she added, have proved just as lasting. Zwerner described breaking down one morning when she realized her plan to see Hamilton, only to remember that the Broadway musical features scenes of dueling.

Since the shooting, Zwerner has stepped away from teaching and has graduated from cosmetology school. She hopes to pursue a career in beauty.

WATCH THE BODYCAM:

This week, jurors reviewed police body-camera footage showing the first officers arriving at the elementary school moments after the shooting. The video captures paramedics working to save Zwerner’s life on the scene.

In the recording, an officer can be heard calling for medics as Zwerner struggles to breathe.

“You’re going to be okay,” a paramedic is heard telling Zwerner.

The educator, who appeared pale in the body-camera footage with a pained expression on her face, is seen carried out on a stretcher. 

Newport News Circuit Court Judge Matthew Hoffman sidebars with attorneys during former Richneck Elementary School teacher Abby Zwerner’s civil lawsuit against the former assistant principal of the school where Zwerner was shot, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va.  (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Attorneys for the Newport News school district have argued that the shooting was an unforeseeable act by a child too young to be fully understood or anticipated. They’ve also contended that Parker and other staff followed reasonable procedures that day.

Former Richneck Elementary School assistant principal Ebony Parker looks back into the courtroom during Abby Zwerner’s lawsuit against her Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, in Newport News, Va. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot via AP, Pool)

Parker faces a separate criminal trial next month on eight counts of felony child neglect, one for “each of the eight bullets that endangered all the students” in Zwerner’s classroom, prosecutors said.

The mother of the boy who shot Zwerner, Deja Taylor, was sentenced to two years in prison for felony neglect and federal weapons charges.