Tennessee mother Elsie Lee woke up Monday morning to a strange noise in her home.

“I thought I was just dreaming something," Lee recalled to WBBJ-TV, "and then I heard a big bang again.”

Image source: WBBJ-TV video screenshot

Realizing something was amiss, she told station she "got up and came running through the hallway" and "the guy was standing in the kitchen. He had just busted my door open.”

And others were waiting outside her Madison County home, WBBJ reported.

Lee told the station her only thought was “protect my son."

Image source: WBBJ-TV video screenshot

So she grabbed her .45-caliber handgun as well as her shotgun.

Image source: WBBJ-TV video screenshot

Image source: WBBJ-TV video screenshot

Then Lee asked the intruder an important question after she approached him.

“I put the gun in his face and asked him if there was something I could do for him," she told WBBJ.

The result?

"He was gone just that quick,” Lee told the station. “I chased him out the back door trying to look at the tag number on the car, something I could describe other than just him.”

Within an hour, deputies arrested Quentin Childress, 20, Jaylon Chiles, 18, Amar Johnson, 21, Kendrick McMullin, 19, and a juvenile male, WBBJ reported, adding that each is charged with aggravated burglary. They were scheduled to make their first court appearance Thursday morning.

From left: Jaylon Chiles, Amar Johnson, Quentin Childress, and Kendrick McMullin (Image source: WBBJ-TV video screenshot)

Lee had nothing but praise for law enforcement.

“I say they were ‘Johnny on the spot,'” she told the station. “They were here within three minutes. I congratulate our sheriff’s department for what they did, and it couldn’t have been done any faster or better.”

Lee told WBBJ she doesn't believe the burglars were armed — but she said she knows what would've happened had the intruder in her home decided to stick around.

“I almost killed him," she told the station. "One of them could have been dead. Had he not ran, he would have been dead."

This story has been updated.

(H/T: Bearing Arms)