Cpl. Kimber Gist had only been with the Berkeley County (SC) Sheriff's Office for two years before she was shot eight times while on duty. For the first time, Gist spoke publicly this week about the February 2016 incident in which she nearly died, reports WCIV .

In front of a group of students at Charleston Southern University, where Gist is also a student, she shared the details of that night when she attempted a stop behind a Goose Creek Food Lion grocery store. She had just asked her sergeant to leave, expecting the rest of the night to be uneventful.

"My initial first thought was what was so loud," she said. "The first shot was my ear. The second in my lip. Only thing I could taste was blood. The only sense I had was the taste of blood and smell of gunpowder. I could actually see my foot blow up in my face."

She remembered each shot, each injury. She remembered the rage she had as the suspect shot her while she was down.

"I refused to lay down in the street and die," she said. So she got up and, covered in blood, waved down a car and calmly asked the good Samaritan driver to call 911.

Her mother, who heard the full story for the first time as well on Thursday, said she knows the reason her daughter survived. "I knew she was going to be something great from the day she was born," Deloris Gist said.

Telling the story wasn't easy, but Gist said she took comfort in sharing such a personal moment with her colleagues and fellow students.