Virginia teacher Abby Zwerner showed for the first time the scars left on her hand after her 6-year-old student shot her last year, a terrifying moment that was the last time she saw her first-grade class .
The 26-year-old educator left her job at Richneck Elementary School shortly after a little boy fired the gun he pulled from his mother’s purse, striking Zwerner in her classroom on Jan. 2, 2023.
“It’s still very difficult for me to think about the last memory I have of them,” Zwerner told Pilot Online on Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the shooting and just weeks after the boy’s mother was sentenced to two years in prison for child neglect. .
“I just wonder about them,” he said, referring to his students. “I hope they are enjoying school, enjoying their second year of graduation. I hope you continue to be kind to your classmates and kind to your teachers. I hope they still have happiness and that their happiness hasn’t been completely stripped away.”
Zwerner showed the scar on the back of his left hand, where the bullet entered and exited before hitting his chest and puncturing his lung.
She was sitting at the classroom reading table when the student, whose mother claims he “really liked” his teacher, pointed the gun at her and fired.
Abby Zwerner said she still has a hard time thinking about the classroom shooting a year after it happened. AP
Since then, Zwerner has undergone five surgeries on his hand to regain his fine motor skills. While he has “made tremendous progress,” Zwerner noted that he still struggles with daily tasks.
His hand “will never be 100%,” Zwerner said. “I have a hard time lifting things…sometimes it’s still hard to make buttons.”
He’s been dealing with a host of health issues in the year since the ordeal, including bullet fragments still lodged in his chest, but he said the physical scars aren’t the only ones he has left.
“It will always be there with me… and it will always be there in the back of my head,” Zwerner said.
The bullet entered Zwerner’s left hand before hitting his chest and puncturing his lung. AP
“I’m not the same every day. I don’t have the same emotions every day, nor the same feelings, nor the same thoughts every day. So there are many good days or good moments, and also bad days or bad moments. … It’s a mix”.
Zwerner has previously spoken about her new struggles with anxiety in public spaces and people hiding their hands in their pockets. He has also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
Restlessness has become so ingrained in her daily life that Zwerner has found it impossible to return to the classroom, robbing the young educator of her life’s passion.
Although he said he would “love” to see his former students, Zwerner doesn’t see himself teaching ever again.
Zwerner is in the middle of a $40 million lawsuit against his former school district. AP
“It has a lot to do with the anxiety that comes with it,” he told the outlet.
“The post-traumatic stress disorder that accompanies it. The fear that comes with thinking about walking into a classroom, or even a school, or (being) a teacher in front of children. …So I know that, at least for now, I am working on a new career path. “That is private for now.”
Zwerner is still in the middle of a $40 million lawsuit against the Newport News School Board, alleging administrators ignored multiple warnings that the boy had a gun.
The school board has tried to block the lawsuit, arguing that Zwerner is only eligible for workers’ compensation under Virginia law, a move Zwerner described as “harmful.”
A judge ruled in November that the lawsuit can go to trial, which the school board is in the process of appealing.
Deja Taylor was sentenced to nearly four years in prison after her son brought his gun to school. AP
Meanwhile, the mother of the boy who shot Zwerner, Deja Taylor, was sentenced in December to two years in prison for felony child neglect.
Taylor, in November, was already sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for using marijuana while possessing a firearm in connection with the shocking case.
Her son, now 7, is in a different school and in the care of his great-grandfather.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn