Plant City, Florida (WTSP) - A stay at home mother of five from Plant City speaks out after detectives say her husband beat her head with a hammer severely enough to fracture her skull in six places.
It happened around 4 a.m. on Monday.
Four of the couple's five kids were at home during the attack.
Investigators say the couple's six-year-old daughter watched it happen, and may have stopped the attack and saved her mother's life.
33-year-old Dawn Young couldn't be prouder of her only daughter, Clarrisa May.
Dawn says Clarissa walked into the room as the child's father, 44-year-old Christopher Young, was pounding Dawn over the head with a hammer inside their Plant City home.
Dawn says, "My little princess, had she not been there, who knows if I'd be alive today. She said 'Daddy why are you hitting Mommy?'"
Dawn adds that she doesn't remember the attack, but she does remember one of the most gruesome details. She says, "Waking up in a pool of blood - and having to drive myself across town to get myself help."
Dawn says she couldn't call 9-1-1 because her husband of 10 years had taken all the cell phones from their home so she couldn't call for help.
She got behind the wheel and drove seven miles to her mother's home, but when she couldn't get into her mother's gated community, she drove herself to the nearest hospital.
She says she only had one thing in mind, and that was her children.
Dawn has five kids, four boys and one girl, but only four kids were at home when the attack happened.
They remained her biggest concern once she arrived at the hospital.
Dawn says, "I wanted somebody back at the house to make sure that they were okay."
Dawn underwent surgery and was released from St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa Friday afternoon.
She says doctors told her to take it easy. She says she wants a divorce from Christopher and hopes to remarry, "Somebody that's not violent and loves kids," one day.
Christopher Young, who is unemployed, has been arrested.
Detectives with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office say he confessed to the crime but isn't saying why he did it.