MAYFIELD, Ky. - Home alone, an 88-year-old woman incredibly managed to escape a home intruder.

Kathryn Byassee said of early Tuesday morning, "It was an accident I was up.  I could not sleep."

But insomnia, it turns out, was the least of her problems.

"He was in the kitchen and I met him there," she said of coming face to face with an intruder around 5 a.m.

Byassee, who is hard of hearing, never heard the intruder enter through the back door.  She asked him who he was and what he wanted.

But the stranger, his identity concealed by a pumpkin mask, never answered. Instead, he became forceful.

"We wrestled more or less until he got me in here," she said, indicating her bedroom.

Once there, he tried to cover her face with a pillow.

"It made me mad enough to do almost anything."

And she did. Byassee fought back, "I began to kick and I think I hit a vital spot and he left."

Once he was gone, Byassee made a call for help, using her emergency alert system.  But, the intruder had cut the cables and help never came.  Luckily, a neighbor was nearby.

"I went to the front door and turned on the light and I saw the lady across the street leaving to go to work," she said.

It was only after police arrived that Byassee had time to consider the what-ifs.

"He could have easily choked me or bumped me on the head."

As for her brave actions, the fiesty 88-year-old said it was not her.

"The Lord was with me, every inch of the way."

Byassee's friends and family are taking turns staying with her.

Mayfield police are investigating a few leads.  Anyone with information is asked to call the department at (270) 247-1981.