Sheryl Lee Ralph opens up about when her son was shot

Sheryl Lee Ralph is opening up about the scariest moments she experienced as a parent.

In PEOPLE's exclusive look at the AARP Magazine cover story for the August/September issue, the 66-year-old Abbott Elementary actress recalled the moment in 2013 she heard that her son Etienne had been involved in not one, but two terrible incidents that changed his life forever.

She explained that when Etienne was in college, he had a car accident and suffered a concussion. "It changed his whole brain" .

"Then he got mugged, and they shot him three times. He woke up in the hospital with two bullets in his leg and a wound in his forehead where a bullet had grazed him."

When Ralph heard that her son had been shot, she "collapsed and dropped the phone."