Oklahoma City police officer recounts being shot

“In my mind I'm going to go after the suspect,” Lawson told a jury in the trial of three family members accused of plotting to kill her. “It felt like I had bricks on my legs.”

Lawson managed to walk a few steps before reality set in: She had been shot in both legs, and blood was running down her face from a head wound. She began to feel dizzy.

“I thought I might pass out and fall to the ground and never wake up,” she said.

Lawson had just finished assisting Oklahoma County sheriff's deputy Heath Oldham on a traffic stop when she was ambushed near the intersection of NW 38 and Miller by 19-year-old Hector Escalante, who pleaded guilty last week to shooting Lawson with a civilian version of an M-16 military assault rifle.

Escalante, his brother Alex Mercado, 18, and their mother, Vilma Escalante, 53, are charged with conspiracy in the Aug. 29, 2010, shooting of Lawson, who survived six gunshot wounds and returned to work in March.