Jackie Alexander, a registered nurse for over two decades, doesn’t shy away from a challenge, and she certainly didn’t back down when a man followed her into her home and began assaulting her.

The terrifying home invasion began after Alexander took her dog outside her Bargersville, IN home Friday just after midnight. Although her husband was at work and she was home alone, she said it’s never been an issue in her quiet community located in Johnson County.

“For eight years I’ve felt safe enough to walk out my front door at 2 a.m. if need be,” said Alexander, “That sense of safety is gone.”

But as she waited for her dog to do her business, she spotted a man walking down the sidewalk approaching her yard, and said he didn’t stop walking until he was on her property.

“I put my hand up and said, stop, excuse me. He did not stop,” she said.

Alexander retreated into her home and tried to secure the door to stop the man, but he knocked the door in and she was unable to prevent him from gaining access to her home.

“He’s in my space. It was clear that he had intent,” she said, “I don’t know if his intent was money or rape or murder. I just knew that he had very bad intentions, and I was scared.”

That’s when Alexander says the home intruder pushed her onto her bed and began to take her clothes off.

“I could not imagine laying there and letting this man control me,” she said.

That’s when her instincts kicked in.

“I kicked the hell out of him… I pulled my leg back, and I kicked him dead in his chest as hard as I could,” she said. That stopped the assault long enough for her to reach her husband’s gun. “I pulled the gun from the case, flipped the safety, sat up, pointed it, and shot twice.”

Alexander said the man ran out of her home after she attempted to administer the lead enema and she was able to run to a neighbor’s home to call police.

“If I didn’t have a gun, there was nothing but me underneath him, struggling to keep him from causing harm,” she said.

An investigator with Bargersville police said they have recovered evidence from Alexander’s home.

Police said the suspect is an African-American or Hispanic man, and was wearing a long gray coat and a ski mask at the time of the attack.

The detective said law enforcement officers will be out canvassing the neighborhood over the weekend talking to people that live there. Multiple law enforcement officers actually live in the neighborhood as well.

If you know anything, you’re asked to call Bargersville Police at (317) 422-1222.

See more of Jackie Alexander’s interview with FOX59: