SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Savannah teen begged doctors to save her life as she went into the operating room after being shot during a botched robbery, a surgeon testified Tuesday in the trial of the teen's accused attackers.

Doctors at Memorial Health in Savannah, Ga., operated on 19-year-old Jennifer Ross for more than four hours the morning of Christmas Eve 2005 in an effort to stanch the blood from a single gunshot that went through her abdomen.

Ross, who had attended her debutante ball earlier that evening, was coherent but anxious as doctors rushed her into the operating room, according to the doctor who performed the surgery.

"She kept asking that we save her, that we help her," trauma surgeon Angela Beck told a jury of five men and seven women hearing the case against the three men accused of attacking Ross.

Through the doctor, the panel also heard the only account from Ross about the attack.

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"She told me, 'I was held up at gunpoint for my wallet, and when I wouldn't turn it over, the black guy shot me,"" Beck recalled.

Michael Thorpe, Webster Wilson and Kevin Huckabee, who are all black, each face life in prison if convicted of killing Ross and pistol-whipping her friend, Brett Finley, during the attack in Savannah's historic district. The defendants claim they were wrongly accused in a police effort to bring fast closure to the case.

After Ross survived the first surgery, doctors struggled for a week to get the Mercer University student back to normal. She died New Years Day 2006 from a sudden ruptured artery, according to another doctor.

Vascular surgeon Dr. Anthony Sussman likened the operating room to "World War Three" as doctors fought to contain internal bleeding in Ross's iliac artery.

"It was like turning on a gardening hose," Sussman testified. "We continued to do everything we could for six hours."

Jurors also viewed autopsy photographs of the victim's bloated body, which doubled to more than 200 pounds after doctors pumped her with fluid during their efforts to save her.

"Would any of this damage have occurred to her artery without the gunshot wound?" Chatham County Assistant District Attorney Christy Barker asked the doctor.

"No," Sussman answered.

Police first started searching for Michael Thorpe after they received an anonymous tip about a man who went by "Turtle."

The tipster, Kathleen Clark, testified Tuesday that she decided to contact police after she overheard Thorpe tell her sons and friends that the shooting was an accident.

"I overheard him say that she bucked and he didn't mean to shoot her," said Clark, referring to Ross's refusal to give up her purse.

Clark, who said that her apartment served as a "gathering place" for her sons and their friends, admitted that she was initially motivated by a $37,000 reward.

"First I was going to do it for the reward money, but then I thought about it and it wasn't really right," Clark said.

"What wasn't right?" Chief Assistant District Attorney David Lock asked.

"Shooting somebody, even if it was an accident," Clark answered.

Clark told the jury that she saw the three defendants with her sons and several others in the early morning of Dec. 24, when she returned home from preparing Christmas dinner at her sister's.

Clark admitted that, even after she called in the tip, she initially told police that Michael Thorpe was in her home the entire night. Eventually, she changed her story when she spoke to police.

"After you talked about the reward, your story changed?" Thorpe's lawyer, Richard Darden, asked the witness.

"Yes," Clark admitted.

The mother of two was one of few witnesses to appear before the jury without shackles on her wrists or jailhouse attire.

In the absence of a murder weapon or forensic evidence linking the defendants to the crime, prosecutors have relied heavily on incriminating statements the defendants' allegedly made to others. The jury has heard from four witnesses who said they are currently incarcerated on unrelated charges, from drugs to firearm possession to theft.

The latest inmate witness testified Tuesday that he was in the Clark home with the defendants the night of the shooting as they made plans to "go out on licks," or look for people to rob. The next day, Ivory Bowens testified, Thorpe told him that "stuff didn't go right," but said he did not shoot anyone.

Bowens admitted that he first went to authorities with the information just a few days after he was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison for being in possession of an armed weapon as a convicted felon.

Clark contradicted Bowens' claim that he was in her home that evening.

"I didn't trust him," Clark said of Bowens, whose nickname was "Sly."

Prosecutors could rest their case Wednesday.

The trial is being streamed live on Court TV Extra.