SASKATOON - Const. Michelle Knopp sobbed on the witness stand Friday as she told a jury how she narrowly avoided death herself on the day two colleagues were shot in the head.

The three Mounties were part of a high-speed chase in rural Saskatchewan on July 7, 2006, and Knopp was bringing up the rear in her vehicle.

She said she had just crested a hill when she saw that the RCMP truck in front of her had T-boned a blue pickup truck driven by Curt Dagenais.

Knopp sat facing the accused as she testified, at times burying her wet face in her hands.

Her emotional testimony brought several family members of the dead officers and at least one juror to tears.

Dagenais, 44, has pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murders of constables Robin Cameron and Marc Bourdages, and to the attempted murder of Knopp.

Knopp told court the chase ended on a remote dirt trail. She pulled up in her SUV and saw that the driver's door of the RCMP truck near her was wide open, but she didn't see anyone around.

She assumed Bourdages and Cameron had jumped out to arrest Dagenais. He was wanted for assaulting a family member, and the pursuit had started after he hit Cameron with the side mirror of his truck in the town of Spiritwood.

"I got on the radio and said, `We got him,"' Knopp said.

But as she started taking off her seatbelt, she heard a loud bang. A hole appeared in the windshield in front of her face.

"The right side of my face got really hot and my ear started bleeding," she testified. "My first initial instinct was, 'Who's throwing rocks at me?"'

Knopp said she next looked out and saw Dagenais standing there. He had a gun, and fired again.

She ducked below the dashboard and pulled out her pistol.

"All I could think was, `I'm not going to die here tonight. I'm a single parent and my boys need me."'

She looked up through the window. Dagenais was still aiming at her.

"Just the look in his eyes, I will never forget that look. I knew he was going to shoot at me again."

She fired two shots in his direction, then opened her door and let go another round. She then thought she saw Dagenais go down. She still didn't see anyone else there.

"I didn't know where Robin and Marc were and why they weren't helping me."

She next climbed out of her vehicle and crept toward the RCMP truck. Inside, she saw Cameron sitting straight up in the passenger seat, still strapped in with her seatbelt.

"There was blood everywhere," Knopp cried. "She didn't move. She didn't look like herself."

Knopp said the next thing that struck her was that she was supposed to have been riding in the police truck that day.

"I was supposed to be sitting there," she cried.

It had earlier been decided she would ride with Bourdages. But Cameron had changed the plan just as they were leaving the detachment and offered to partner with Bourdages instead.

Knopp said as she walked around the area, she next spotted Bourdages lying in tall grass. His eyes were open.

"I saw him move his hand toward his cellphone. I knew he was alive. I tried to pick him up. I wanted to take him with me. But I couldn't lift him. He was too heavy."

She said she made the excruciating decision to drive off alone. She knew anyone coming to help wouldn't be able to find the remote location.

Knopp drove to the nearest grid road and waited for more police to find her. While she waited, she called her parents.

She told her mother she had been shot, and her mother dropped the phone. Her father, a retired Mountie, then got on the line.

"I told him I didn't want to be a cop anymore," said Knopp.

But Knopp said she is still an RCMP member. She now works in the force's immigration and passport section in Calgary.

She has since had two operations to remove bullet fragments from her ear, arm and torso, but doctors say they can't be safely taken out. She must live with them in her body.

At the time of the shooting, Knopp had been working at the Spiritwood detachment for a few years. Bourdages was married to another officer in the detachment there, and they had a young son. Cameron was a single mother to an 11-year-old girl.

Knopp said on the day of the shooting Cameron learned a transfer she had requested to Saskatoon had been granted. She had been waiting a long time and wanted to move there to be close to her brother, who was seriously ill.

Cameron let out a happy shriek, said Knopp. "She called her daughter right away to tell her the good news."

Soon after, Dagenais showed up at the detachment, yelling and demanding police evict his mother and sister from a house in town that he part-owned.

His mother lived in the house but was in the middle of a bitter divorce with Dagenais's father, and the couple had earlier been in court to discuss a property settlement. Dagenais had taken his father's side in the dispute.

Knopp said when she told Dagenais it was a civil matter and they wouldn't get involved, he threatened her.

"I'm not done with you guys yet," he said before storming off.

Knopp said she took it as a personal threat but Dagenais could also have been threatening a lawsuit. The family had previously filed several suits against the RCMP.

Dagenais's sister and mother then showed up at the detachment, said Knopp. They wanted Dagenais charged with assault for pushing his sister outside the house while ordering the women to pack up and leave within an hour.

Knopp said Dagenais's mother, Elsie, was upset and scared.

"She thought Art, her ex-husband, had been filling Curt's head full of lies, and that's what had gotten Curt so mad."

When the officers learned Dagenais was parked outside the house and sitting in his truck, they drove over to arrest him.

Court has previously heard that Cameron got out to talk to Dagenais through his window, but he started to drive away and hit her with the side mirror of his truck. Using her baton, she shattered the side window before Dagenais sped off out of town.

Knopp said she was right behind Dagenais for part of the 30-kilometre chase that ensured, but Cameron and Bourdages later asked her to slow down so they could take the lead.

A tape recording of RCMP radio chatter during the chase was also played in the trial, the eerie voices of Cameron and Bourdages renewing sobs throughout the courtroom.

At one point, Cameron tells dispatch she is concerned that Dagenais is heading to his father's farm, where there are guns.

"This boy is not right," Cameron says. Minutes later, she says Dagenais had rammed the side of their police vehicle.

Another voice on the radio says Dagenais is flagged as a "police hater."

The trial is set to last two more weeks.