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Mason, 12, shot in abdomen outside Sparks Middle School in Nevada on Monday

Mason was one of two students injured; a teacher was killed

Mason says he tried to help teacher before he was wounded himself

Mason heard gunshots while he was outside with classmates, waiting for school to start. Then students were running, and a teacher was lying still on a playground basketball court, hit by gunfire.

The 12-year-old wanted to help him, but a vice principal told him to run. So Mason moved toward the building -- and that's when he saw Jose Reyes, a friend and a Sparks Middle School classmate, with a gun about 10 to 20 feet away.

"I (said), 'Please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me,'" Mason toldCNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from a hospital where he was being treated. "I looked at him. I saw (the gun), and he braced it and shot me in the stomach."

Authorities say Mason was the last of three people that Reyes, 12, shot with a 9 mm handgun Monday morning outside the school. Mason and another wounded student -- the first to be shot -- survived.

Math teacher Mike Landsberry, the second to be hit, died. Investigators say Landsberry probably saved lives by walking toward the shooter -- giving others time to flee -- on the basketball court after the first student was shot in the shoulder.

Photos: Nevada middle school shooting 10 photos

Photos: Nevada middle school shooting10 photos

Nevada middle school shooting – A parent escorts his child from