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Lea Norton always felt safe in Pahrump.

Until last week, when a quick run into Smith's for some milk left her the victim of a brutal assault.

It was about 10 minutes after midnight, and Norton was crossing from the handicapped parking space, directly in front of the store's entrance, when a black sport utility vehicle with black-tinted windows pulled up in front of her.

"I thought it was going to hit me, so I went around to the back of the vehicle," Norton explained.

Then the passenger door opened, and the next thing Norton knew a man she described as "well groomed and well dressed" was yanking on her purse and saying, "Give me your purse, bitch."

Her attacker grabbed for the object, but Norton didn't let go, and a struggle ensued.

She was then struck several times in the head with a blunt object, which Norton said medical personnel told her may have been the butt end of a gun.

She hit the ground, but was still sensible enough to read the license plate.

Her attacker, however, was still attempting to get her purse, and after being dragged for a little bit, Norton let go.

Norton got up and made it into the store, where she was given a bottle of water to put on the bruises swelling on her face by a clerk.

The store manager called for help.

Norton refused to go the hospital, but she did answer questions from the sheriff's deputy and detective who came to the scene.

Norton told Det. Alex MacNeil that her assailant was a Latino man, probably in his mid-20's, who was approximately six feet tall with a thin, well-trimmed beard.

The sheriff's office is still investigating the incident, but for Norton, things still aren't the same.

Since the attack, her life has changed drastically.

"I felt so safe in Pahrump," Norton said. "I had no problem getting a half-gallon milk at midnight. Now I'm constantly looking at license plates."

The first few days after the assault, Norton couldn't leave her house at all.

"It's a horrible thing to go through. It's a traumatic thing to go through," Norton said. "I have nightmares and didn't want to leave the house. And that's not me, because I used to go out all the time."

Norton is taking a pro-active approach to her attack, however, and is planning on taking the free women's self-defense class offered here by Homeland Heroes.

She has also contacted Smith's corporate offices (the manager of the local store told her it was the first incident like that to happen at the store in 15 years).

And for now, she is also focusing on getting the word out to other women that attacks can occur even here in Pahrump.

"I know a lot of senior citizen women who go out, and I just don't want anything to happen to them," Norton said. "If anyone comes up to me and says, 'Leah, what happened?' I tell them."

Although Norton is also understandably upset about the items she lost in the robbery, which include a rosary blessed by a Pope at the Vatican who has since died, she and her husband both acknowledge the simple truth that it could have been much worse.