Zwerner testifies she believed she died after shooting, Parker sued

Abby Zwerner, a former first-grade teacher, testified Thursday that she believed she had died after a six-year-old student shot her in January 2023 at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News. Zwerner is the plaintiff in a $40 million civil suit accusing former assistant principal Ebony Parker of failing to act after several people warned that the child had brought a gun to school.

Zwerner said she was seated at a reading table when the student fired, striking her in the hand and chest. She spent nearly two weeks in the hospital, underwent six surgeries and said she does not have full use of her left hand. A bullet remains lodged in her chest, narrowly missing her heart, and a physician testified this week that Zwerner cannot make a tight fist with her left hand and has less than half of its normal grip strength. On the witness stand, Zwerner described the immediate aftermath: "I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven," she testified. "But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn't going there."

The shooting reverberated through the Newport News community, which includes a large military shipbuilding workforce, and prompted...