A terrified civilian worker begged an emergency police dispatcher for help as gunfire and screams rang out during a deadly rampage at Fort Hood, according to a recording of the phone call played Wednesday at a military hearing.

The hearing is to decide if an Army psychiatrist accused in the attack should stand trial.

Medical technician Michelle Harper told the Article 32 hearing that she was working at the Army base's processing center when gunfire erupted Nov. 5. She said she hid under a desk after a soldier in front of her was shot three times, and that she could only see the shooter's slow, deliberate footsteps around the center as the tragedy unfolded.

Harper was the second witness to testify at the Article 32 hearing to determine if Maj. Nidal Hasan should stand trial.

Hasan, 40, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the attack _ the worst mass shooting at an American military base.

The Article 32 hearing, a proceeding unique to military law, will determine if there's enough evidence to move forward to a trial. It is expected to last at least three weeks.

Harper told the dispatcher "Hurry, hurry, hurry please," according to the recording, which was peppered with the sound in the background of gunshots, the moans of injured victims and people yelling for help.

The dispatcher tried to reassure her. "They're on the way, sweetheart."

Harper cried as the police tape was played, but no one else in the courtroom showed any reaction, including Hasan and some of the victims' relatives assembled there.

Hasan, who has been paralyzed from the chest down since Fort Hood police officers fired at him during the rampage, was expressionless throughout the morning session of the hearing. He wore his Army combat uniform and pulled a blanket around him while sitting in his wheelchair.

Security has been tight at the Fort Hood courthouse, where soldiers at newly installed barriers restricted traffic. Patrol cars cruised the area. Bomb-sniffing dogs scrutinized vehicles.

A small group of reporters allowed into the courtroom went through metal detectors, while photographers outside were blocked from any view of Hasan arriving.

At an auxiliary courtroom where other media monitored proceedings on a closed-circuit TV feed, cell phones were collected and access to the Internet was barred.

Earlier Wednesday, a sergeant who lost most of his eyesight after being shot five times in the attack, said he caught Hasan's eye during the rampage.

"I was wondering why he would say 'Allahu Akbar.'" Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford said of Hasan, "He reached up, pulled a weapon out and started discharging the weapon."

'Allahu Akbar' means 'God is Great' in Arabic.

"Maj. Hasan and I made eye contact. The laser (on the weapon's barrel) comes across my line of sight. I closed my eyes. He discharged his weapon," said Lunsford. He said he lost 100 percent of the sight in one eye as a result of the attack, and that he has only partial vision in the other.

Lunsford, who is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, testified that he crouched behind a check-in counter at the processing center and watched as a civilian physician assistant tried to knock Hasan down with a chair. He said that man was shot.

Witnesses have said Hasan used two personal pistols, one a semiautomatic, to take some 100 shots at about 300 people at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where soldiers were making final preparations to deploy.

Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty if the case goes to trial.

Col. James L. Pohl, a military judge presiding over the hearing as its investigating officer, made no mention Wednesday of a request by Hasan's lawyers to postpone the hearing until Nov. 8 _ after the anniversary of the attacks.