WASHINGTON, 10 jan 2023 (BSS/AFP) - US authorities on Monday praised the heroism of a schoolteacher who was shot and wounded by a six-year-old boy, saying she saved lives by evacuating all her students before seeking her own care.

"I believe that Miss Zwerner, Abigail, she saved lives on Friday," Newport News, Virginia police chief Steve Drew said, after a student shot her in her first grade class at Richneck Elementary School.

The student and the teacher were having a discussion when he pulled out the pistol, authorities said. Zwerner stuck her hand out in a defensive gesture and the child fired a bullet which punctured her hand before entering her chest.

"She made sure that every one of those kids were out of that room and she was the last one to leave. So I believe she did save lives," he stressed.

Still hospitalized Monday, she was in stable condition, Drew said.

School shootings plague the United States, with recent tragedies including the killing last May of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, by an 18-year-old gunman.

There were an estimated 44,000 gun-related deaths in the United States last year, about half of them murder cases, accidents and self-defense, and half of them suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive database.