With the help of her legally-owned firearm, a Florida woman was able to protect herself and her family after several armed robbers stormed her Miami home earlier this month, and newly released surveillance footage captures the tense moments that ended with the intruders fleeing the home after they exchanged fire with the armed citizen.

26-year old Ansley Pacheco, an Instagram influencer and model on the adult site OnlyFans, told WPLG-TV that the intruders easily could have killed her family if she hadn’t acted her husband and son.

“While I was in the bathroom, I started to hear the commotion, I started hearing, ‘Get down, get down, give me everything you got,’” she recalled. “I went to the nightstand; I grabbed the gun and I opened the door. I saw one if they guys face to face with me. He told me to put my gun down. I just shook my head no, and then I said, ‘Don’t shoot me, my son is in here.’”

After an eruption of gunfire, the intruders finally took off.

“They finally just ran out,” Pacheco said. “My husband ran and got the gun and shot back at the vehicle that was leaving.”

Pacheco says she was shot at six or seven times before she returned fire. Moments later, Pacheco’s husband ran into the bedroom and took the gun from his wife before running outside to try to stop the home invaders, who were able to get away in a waiting vehicle.

In the weeks since the October 4th home invasion, Miami-Dade police have not made any arrests in the case. Pacheco says she doesn’t believe she knows the suspects, and it’s unclear whether her home was specifically targeted, or if the criminals were in the neighborhood looking for whatever opportunity they could find to gain entry into one of the many homes in the upscale community.

No one was injured in the home invasion, thankfully, and hopefully with the renewed media attention the case is receiving police will get some tips that will allow them to arrest those responsible for the crime.

As for Pacheco, I hope that she’ll use this story and her platform to encourage others to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, as well as get the training they need in order to effectively defend themselves in a similar situation. Her defensive gun use is likely to resonate with many of her followers, and the fact that she and her family are alive today because they were able to fight back is worth talking about.