SCOTT MACFARLANE:
00:00:16
Nearly three years after she was shot by her own six-year-old student, Abby Zwerner still remembers the instant just before the shooting. It was like a very blank look, but it wasn't a blank look at all on his face.
SCOTT MACFARLANE:
00:00:30
And what happened next. I thought I was dying. I thought I had died.
SCOTT MACFARLANE:
00:00:39
Zwerner, a former first-grade teacher, took the stand at a civil trial in Newport News, Virginia, today. Just an overwhelming sense of-- I felt like everything just came over my body. I remember crying a lot.
SCOTT MACFARLANE:
00:00:56
Zwerner spoke haltingly and slowly at times about how her life has changed, injured and unwilling to do anything outside her home. Just leave me alone. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to see anyone.
SCOTT MACFARLANE:
00:01:09
Jurors in the trial will decide whether to award Zwerner damages. She's suing the school's former assistant principal, Ebony Parker, for $40 million, claiming Parker disregarded a series of warnings from students and staff that the young boy might have brought a gun to school. Police body-camera video shown to jurors during the trial shows officers moving through the school and paramedics working to save Zwerner's life. She underwent six surgeries. Zwerner's mother told jurors about seeing her daughter in the hospital. She was in pain, all bandaged up, all tubes and machines hooked up to her. She saw me come through the room, and she just said, mommy. About the tragedy, in opening statements, the defense attorney said no one could see it coming, that it was unpredictable. Maurice, the defense will begin making its case at trial on Monday.
