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INDIANAPOLIS (Dec. 8, 2014)-- An Indianapolis grandmother is recovering from serious facial injures after she says she refused to give in to three young men who tried to steal her van Sunday night.

Kay Kise, 67, says she had just arrived outside her home in the 200 block of North Randolph Street around 8 p.m. She had been doing some Christmas shopping and was just getting out of her van when three black males, about 16 years old, approached her. One of the teens asked her for directions to Hendricks House. After she gave him directions, he pulled a gun on her.

"And the next thing I know, he's got a gun right in my face," Kise told FOX59. "And he's telling me, 'Give me the keys to that van.'"

Her reaction was instinct.

"I said, 'You're not getting my van' and I slapped that gun to the side," Kise said.

The next moment, the teen suspect bashed Kise in the side of her head, knocking her dizzy. She had fallen back into her van with the sliding back door still open. The next thing she knew, she was sitting in the back seat. Her head was throbbing and starting to bleed and swell.

But, she was still holding her keys.

"I wasn't about to let no young punk take my car," Kise said.

Kise's 13-year-old neighbor heard the sounds of the scuffle and looked outside.

"I looked down there, and I saw that her face was swollen and bleeding," the teen said. "I was scared, and I ran upstairs and was like 'Ms. Kay is hurt mom, Ms. Kay is hurt!'"

The yelling apparently scared the suspects away. They took off running down the street.

"I think they're cowards," said close family friend Tara Spalding. "For three young guys to beat up on a 67-year-old woman."

Kise had to spend Sunday night at Eskenazi Hospital. She's not sure how many times she was hit, but she has several facial fractures, bleeding on her brain and her left eye is swollen shut. She will require follow-up appointments for treatment.

Still, she doesn't regret her decision to say "no" to the would-be carjackers.

"I know it's just a vehicle, but it's the only thing I've got," Kise said. "And I don't have no money to buy another one with. So they weren't going to take it from me."

Kise's granddaughter hopes the teenage suspects will think about what they've done, and turn themselves in to police.

"If you're out here, and if you're watching this," she told FOX59, "I just wanted you to think of it being your mom, or your grandma, or your aunt, or your sister. Laying up in the hospital like that."

Kise wanted to tell her story to remind her neighbors to always be on the lookout for danger.

"I just hope, dear Lord, that he won't let these kids do it to nobody else," Kise said.