An image of the broken window from the home invasion.

LAWRENCE — She actually woke up to find the intruder standing right over her bed. But maternal instinct kicked in and Elayne Nichols said she simply had to protect her family.

Nichols’ granddaughter was off to a hastily-planned sleepover at a friend’s Tuesday night. It’s a school night, but Nichols says she just doesn’t feel safe anymore in her own home.

“My granddaughter’s afraid. She doesn’t, you know, she’s spending the night with a friend,” Nichols said.

The night before, Nichols describes as a nightmare: a break-in and attack that she first thought was a dream. “I  just opened my eyes and a man was standing over me,” Nichols said. “It’s a terrible way to wake up.”

She thinks her attacker, who was about 5-foot, 7 inches tall and 150 pounds, was a teenager.

“That’s the part that really makes me sick, that a child is capable of doing. I mean look at the windows! Not one window, not two, but he broke out three and then to go to a fourth and a fifth and a sixth,” Nichols said.

Police say he eventually used a neighbor’s porch chair to climb up and through the kitchen window. He ended up in Nichols’ bedroom. She says they recently got back from the Thanksgiving holiday away, and wonders if the intruder thought no one would be home.

“The only blessing is, he didn’t walk in her room first,” Nichols said, referring to her granddaughter.

In fact, when Nichols realized this was not a dream, her first thought was of 9-year-old Lena. Protect her little girl.

“When he asked me to roll over, it just clicked that my granddaughter was in the house and that I had to fight. Rolling over was not an option,” Nichols said. “He stabbed me with something, I still don’t know what it was. Police think it might have been a screwdriver. I didn’t even know I was bleeding until the officer told me later. You’re just…you’re numb.”

But Nichols fought to save her family.

“I hit him. I kicked him and at the last point, I yelled for my granddaughter to dial 911,” she explained.

“I grabbed the lamp in my bedroom. I ripped it out of the wall and I followed him out the front door!”

He ran off with small electronics — a laptop and their cell phones. But he also stole this family’s sense of safety. Nichols says she’s now getting a security system and a gun.

“This is the way our world is going. You need to be able to protect yourself,” Nichols said.

Hours later, she says she’s still shaken, but also thankful this attack wasn’t any worse.

Source: WTHR