This is one tough kid.

When a mountain lion attacked 8-year-old Pike Carlson last month, he quickly tried to fight off the ferocious animal with a stick, the Colorado boy said this week.

“I was just punching, trying to grab anything that I can,” a still-recovering Pike told NBC-affiliate KUSA in an interview. “I did find a stick and I tried to get it in the eye, but the stick snapped.”

Pike was out playing with his older brother, Gage, in the backyard of the family’s home in the town of Bailey on Aug. 21 when he was suddenly attacked by the beast.

The animal grabbed the youngster by the head and pinned him under a tree. The boy’s brother ran to get their dad, Ron Carlson, from inside the home as the mountain continued to attack Pike.

“I was sitting at the back door at the dining room table and Gage runs through the back door and said Pike’s yelling for help,” Ron told the news outlet. “His head was inside the lion’s mouth and I watched and I think that’s what made me snap inside…watching him chew on him.”

The lion ran off once the dad got to his son, the site reported. Ron said that when he first picked up his mauled son, “I could see the whole side of his face was open.”

“There was blood all over here,” he said. “His scalp was ripped open in several spots. It was something that no parent should ever see.”

The father said his son recalled to him how the boy tried to defend himself against the lion.

“He told me, he goes, ‘Dad, all animals have a vulnerable spot — their eyeballs,’ so he picked up a stick that was underneath the tree and I guess he was reaching back trying to poke it in the eye,” Ron said.

Following the attack, the family raced to get Pike medical attention.

“I just imagined the worst and when I saw him it was the worst,” Pike’s mom, Julia Carlson, told KUSA.

Pike’s parents brought him to the closest fire station where paramedics brought him to a local hospital.

The boy needed two surgeries and dozens of stitches to close up his wounds.

“That first night in the hospital, even though the doctors were saying it’s going to be OK, I just kept flashing back to what could have happened,” said Julie, according to the news outlet. “What if Gage, my oldest, didn’t get to him in time? What if my husband didn’t get to him in time?”

In detailing his near-death experience Pike, who still can’t fully open his left eye, warned, “The mountain lion is a cheater. No one try to wrestle a mountain lion.”

The mountain lion that attacked Pike has since been euthanized, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.