Check gauges, ran rough, no oil pressure
 

So I was on my way home from class tonight, and all of a sudden my car started running poorly, and it almost sounded like it was knocking (just below 2000RPM). I left off right away and noticed the check gauges had come on. I quickly noticed the oil pressure gauge was at 0. As quickly as I could, I turned it off and rolled into a parking lot.

In a dumb move, I started it again to listen for anything. Again no pressure, check gauges, and it idled a bit low, almost like the opti had gotten splashed with a small amount of water (for comparison reasons, it was dry and clearly not the opti). I turned it off and got it towed.

So first off, I'm wondering what could oil pressure to drop instantly? It has been running fine for a long time and I thought oil pumps failed slowly.

What concerns me more though is if any permanent or otherwise severe damage could have been done. It ran no more then a minute like this, probably closer to the 35-45 second range. Still though, no oil is very bad.

Any input please?

Running crappy, knocking, check gauges and 0 pressure all add up to no good. Drain the oil and shove a coat hanger in the drain hole and try to find out if the oil pump pick up fell off.
If it's not in the bottom of the pan.

After that you could do several things. My idea would be to pull the intake and prime the oil pump (with oil and a new filter) to see how it's oiling up top.

burned up oil pump drive. maybe teeth sheared off.

I've had this happen once, turned out to be just a bad oil pressure switch. I remember when it happened...not a good felling.