Two young boys in Brooklyn are being credited with saving their mother’s life after she was stabbed by an attacker who burst into their home.

WABC-TV in New York reported that the unidentified man, whom the family did not know, forced his way into their apartment Sunday evening and attacked the woman with a knife. The woman asked the television station not to identify her or her children out of fear that the man could return.

"He came inside and he kept stabbing me in my head," she told the news station. "I was telling him, 'Please don't kill me.'"

The woman said her 13-year-old son, also begging for her life, ran to her aid.

"I heard her scream, and so I ran and I saw he had the knife," the boy told WABC-TV. "That's when I ran to him, choking him, and I twisted his arm."

The boy’s 11-year-old brother grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen and joined in defending his mother. He hit the man several times in the head and got him to back away.

The assailant ran from the apartment, the news station reported. Still at large, he is described as being in his early 20s, with a tattoo on his face and his hair in dreadlocks. He was last seen wearing a black bubble jacket.

The boys, who also suffered cuts to their hands in the attack, told the news station that they were grateful that the injuries they and their mother sustained weren’t more serious.

"Thank God she's alive," the younger boy said about his mother. "Me and my brother tried our best to keep fighting and keep fighting and never give up."