A first-grade teacher who was allegedly shot by a six-year-old said she remembers the 'gun going off' as she opened up in her first interview since the incident.
Abigail Zwerner suffered gunshot wounds to the hand and chest when the shooting took place on 6 January while she was in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia.
Zwerner was allegedly shot by a six-year-old student who has an 'acute disability' and was under a care plan which required a parent to go to school with him, though his family said he was unaccompanied on the day the shooting took place.
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Zwerner was taken to hospital after the shooting and has since undergone four surgeries, mostly on her left hand. The bullet 'went through [her] left hand and ruptured the middle bone as well as the index finger and the thumb', before getting lodged in her chest, where fragments of it still remain now.
She was released from the hospital last month, and spoke for the first time since the incident with NBC today (21 March).
“I remember him pointing the gun at me, I remember the look on his face,” Zwerner said. “I remember the gun going off.”
The teacher described herself as being 'terrified', but remembers her initial reaction was to get the other children out of the classroom.
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She remembers thinking 'this is not a safe classroom anymore', adding: "I just wanted to get my babies out of there.”
Zwerner didn't know the extent of her injuries until later, but she was struggling to breathe as she got the kids to safety as a result of a collapsed lung.
“I remember I went to the office, and I just passed out,” she said. “I thought I had died.”
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Zwerner said the shooting could have been 'fatal', but it's believed the motion of it going through her hand first 'likely saved [her] life'.
She said her recovery has been 'challenging', recalling some 'not-so-good days' when she can't get out of bed, but continued: “Some days are better than others where I’m able to get out of bed and make it to my appointments. But from going through what I’ve gone through, I try to stay positive.”
The teacher knows the moment she had a gun pointed 'directly at' her will stick with her forever, adding: “It’s changed me, it’s changed my life.”
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Zwerner’s attorney, Diane Toscano, has claimed that teachers and employees at the school made administrators aware three times on the day of the shooting that the student had a gun.
Toscano accused the administrators of having 'failed to act' despite having 'knowledge of imminent danger'. The school district has previously said it could not comment on whether administrators were made aware due to the ongoing investigation.
UNILAD has reached out to Richneck Elementary School for comment.
Emily Brown