A 77-year-old Fort Worth woman who uses a wheelchair fought for her life after a stranger burst into her senior-living apartment late Monday and attacked her with furniture and frozen food.

June Gruebel said she was asleep when she heard loud banging at her neighbor’s door, then her own. Her daughter-in-law had accidentally left the front door unlocked.

“He comes busting through the door, took his fist and hit me and knocked me down,” Gruebel told WFAA reporters from her living room, her head stitched and her back covered in deep bruises. “Hit me on my back. Kicked me in the side.”

She said the man, identified by police as 21-year-old Cristian Mendez, threw kitchen chairs at her head, hurled a table onto her waist, knocked over her refrigerator, and pelted her with items from the freezer.

“I kept screaming, ‘Help me! Help me!’ I screamed as loud as I could,” Gruebel said, Fox 4 KDFW reported. “The more I asked him [what he wanted], the more he found to throw at me.”

Unable to stand, Gruebel dragged herself across broken glass to the front door.

“I had to get out,” she said, per Fox 4. “If I cut myself, it was all good as long as I was out.”

A neighbor who saw Mendez throwing patio furniture called 911 and then spotted Gruebel crawling outside on her hands and knees.

“Oh yeah,” the neighbor told Fox 4 when asked if the attack could have been fatal. “He might have killed her on his way.”

Officers arriving at the apartment in the 6100 block of Community Lane around 11 p.m. on December 1 found Mendez still inside. Police said he resisted arrest and tried to grab an officer’s gun before being subdued with a Taser.

Mendez was charged with burglary of a habitation with intent to commit another felony and attempting to take a weapon from an officer. He remained in the Tarrant County jail on Wednesday, with a bond set at $225,000.

Gruebel, who pressed her medical-alert button during the assault and later prayed aloud while under attack, returned home from the hospital with stitches and heavy bruising.

“I hurt bad,” she said, managing a small laugh as she pointed out that one thrown jar had missed her. “The Hellmann’s mayonnaise missed me over there by the window.”

Despite the trauma, she vowed to keep going.

“I can’t fight back like I used to,” Gruebel said, per Fox 4, “but I’m going to fight anyway I can.”