A mum told how she was ready to die defending her children after three men burst into her home with machetes.
Ashley Reilly, 35, screamed at her son Benji, 14, and daughter Vogue, six, to hide as the gang slashed their way through the property in Lanark, Scotland.
In a desperate bid to defend herself, she pulled a wardrobe in front of herself but the attackers hacked their way through as her terrified children looked on.
She was left with severed tendons in her wrist and ankle and six-inch long cuts along her leg.
Ashley had been woken up by the noise of her front window being smashed in at 4am on Thursday and begged her children to run up the stairs.
"They were swinging the machete about up and down at me," she told the Daily Record.
"I didn't even realise I'd been hurt. I was shouting at them, the police were coming and they ran off.
"I was just thinking of the kids. I would die defending them, so I didn't feel a thing."
Ashley recalled looking down at her leg and seeing her bone sticking out when her immediate thought was to close the wound.
"I tried to pull my leg together so the kids didn't see," she added.
Ashley said her son Benji saved her life by phoning for help while she tried to close the gaping wound in her limb.
A police officer then kept her awake and administered first aid before an ambulance arrived.
The mum explained how he kept her conscious by talking to her and said "he needs a medal."
She added: "He wrapped up my wounds, held my hand, and told me I wasn't going to die.
"He was telling me how he remembered me growing up. He kept me talking and kept me calm by was asking me about the kids and what I'd been up to."
In the ambulance, Ashley then saw the officer crying and put this down to him doubting whether she would pull through.
"He was trying to give me the chance to speak to my kids to say goodbye," she said.
"I thought 'that's it I'm going to die here'".
It was only after the attack when Ashley was able to take stock of her injuries which included a 15cm deep bone gash in her thigh, a 13cm cut to her shin and deep cuts to her left foot and right hand.
Surgeons are not sure whether they can save her middle toe which was also gruesomely hacked.
But she was determined to speak out about the ordeal to show her aggressors that she is not afraid.
"I don't want vengeance. I want to get justice and to see these people locked up," she said.
"They don't deserve to be free for what they did to me, especially in front of my kids.
"I don't want them hurt or in any pain. They've got mums, daughters, kids, and that would make me as bad as them.
"No, I want them to go to jail and look themselves in the mirror and think about what they've done to me and my family."
Ashley said that her daughter Vogue has been talking about the incident at night and asking if she saved her life.
While Benji said he is scared that that the knifemen would get through his mum and slay him too.
"I keep telling him he saved my life," Ashley said.
Ashley thinks she was attacked by the gang after her boyfriend James' Range Rover was set alight the week prior.
The mum believes local thugs had taken a disliking to her partner because he is English and says they attacked her out of revenge after she confronted them.
She also feels that they watched her house from a white car in the days before the assault.
Ashley has since left Lanark for the safety of her and her children but insists she will not be frightened into silence.
"My whole life has been changed and I'm petrified at the thought of ever going home," she said.
"But my revenge will be to be happy. I used to be quite vain, but now that I have these scars, I'm over that.
"I'll still go about in my shorts, with my scars on show. They're part of me and my story now.
"And if anyone asks how I got them, I can say I got them saving my kids' lives."
Police are hunting for her attackers who are believed to have gone to ground and fled Scotland.
DS Derrick Lunan, of Wishaw CID, said: “The motive for this assault has still to be established, however we believe that the suspects, for whatever reason, targeted this particular address.
“Officers have been carrying out enquiries since the attack and are keen to trace a white car seen in the area between 3.50am and 4.10am on Monday morning.
“If you have any information that will assist officers with their enquiries, or may be have dash cam or doorbell footage from Monday morning, then please contact officers at Wishaw CID via 101."
