LIVERMORE FALLS — Dot Bailey has nine stitches in her forehead, bumps on her head, bruises on her arms and shoulders and fingernails broken off at the quick.

The 46-year-old grandmother was sitting in her living room at around 9 a.m. Monday having her first smoke of the day and watching “Charmed” on television. When she looked up, she saw two men standing in her house wearing homemade ski masks. One of them was pointing a gun at her.

“I thought it was a joke,” Bailey said Tuesday on the back deck of her Pine Ridge Loop home.

“I laughed at them. I was so stupid, I thought it was a joke. I thought it was a toy gun,” she said.

“They said, ‘We know you have kids here,’ and one of them mumbled something like, ‘Give it up,’” she said. “I rolled my eyes and said, ‘Good one, guys.’ Then one of them came running at me.”

She realized then that they were not kidding.

“I said, ‘Hell, no. You are the ones that hit me Thursday,’” she said, referring to a burglary at her home last week while she was at a medical appointment. Several jars of change were stolen.

With her 5-year-old granddaughter sleeping in a bedroom, Bailey said the adrenaline was pumping and she went into action.

“I grabbed a-hold of both of them, one in each hand,” Bailey said. “I pinned the tallest one against the dryer and the other against the opposite wall.”

The nearly 5-foot, 4-inch tall woman said she came up almost to the shoulder of the taller one.

One of them had her money container that had rent and some change in it.

“I made him drop it somehow,” she said. “I got $20 back and some change.”

The man behind her was able to free one of his arms, she said.

“I was concentrating more on the taller one and then he called the guy stupid and said, ‘Hit her again,’” Bailey said. “He kept telling the one behind me to ‘hit her again.’ He kept hitting me with the gun on the head. I still didn’t let go and they got the door open. I held on and I didn’t let go.”

She was pulled out the door about 3 feet onto the deck when her fingernails let go. Most of her long nails broke off during the struggle.

She twisted her foot, re-injuring a heel bone she fractured in April. It had just healed well enough so she could get around.

She chased them around the side of the house, she said, but had to give up. They were running and once they hit the pavement, one of them took off his mask, revealing blond hair, she said. It was cut in a short, military style, just a bit longer, she said.

After they left, she called her son-in-law and a friend who came over. The friend called police, Bailey said.

A state police dog tracked the suspects on Route 106 to a snowmobile trail and that’s where the track ended, said Bailey’s friend, Angela Pomerleau.

“If I had one more arm, I would have had them,” Bailey said. “They hit me continuously. I have bumps all over my head.”

Pomerleau removed Bailey’s bandage from her forehead to change it. The stitches formed a semicircle from the butt of the gun.

“I didn’t realize I had my head split open until I touched my forehead and there was blood,” Bailey said. “I have a mild concussion.”

Fear was not on her mind during the struggle.

“I really wanted to beat the crap out of them, and I still do,” she said. “I hope the cops catch them before I do. I didn’t think of calling police. I just thought of stopping them and getting my money back. To think they would come into someone’s house with a gun and wearing ski masks.”

Bailey described both men as tall and thin.

“I would say they were drug addicts,” she said. “They were so skinny — skeleton skinny.”

dperry@sunjournal.com

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