Teacher who was shot by 6-year-old student at school testifies she thought she was dead

an ex Virginia The teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in her classroom in 2023 testified Thursday that she thought she died that day.

Abby Zwarner testified in a $40 million lawsuit filed against a former assistant principal who is accused of ignoring multiple warnings that a student had a gun.

Zwerner was shot in the arm and chest in January 2023 as she sat at a reading table in her first grade classroom at Richneck Elementary School. newport newsZwerner spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, required six surgeries and lost the full use of her left arm. A bullet hit him in the chest.

“I thought I was dead. I thought I was either going to heaven or in heaven,” Zwarner testified. “But then it all went black. And so, I thought I’m not going to be there. And then my next memory is I saw two coworkers around me and I thought I was hurt and they were applying pressure to where I was hurt.”

The shooting sent shock waves through the military shipbuilding community and the nation, with many wondering how such a young child could get access to a gun and shoot his teacher.

Zwarner no longer works for the school district and has said she has no plans to teach again. It was revealed in court on Wednesday that she has become a licensed cosmetologist.

Former assistant principal Ebony Parker is accused of failing to act after several people expressed concerns to her just hours before the shooting that a student had taken a gun to school. Parker is the sole defendant in the lawsuit. A judge had previously fired the district’s superintendent and school principal.

Parker faces a separate criminal trial next month on eight counts of gross child neglect. A conviction on each count could result in a prison sentence of up to five years.

The student’s mother was sentenced to nearly four years in prison on felony child neglect and federal weapons charges. Her son told authorities that he found his mother’s pistol by climbing over a drawer and reaching on top of a dresser, where the gun was in his mother’s purse.