One day last month Brenda Garcia was gassing up her van at a service station in Santa Fe, New Mexico. A young guy walked up to her while she was pumping gas and asked for money.

According to ABC-TV 13 News in Houston, the woman told the kid, "Sorry, I spent all my spare change on gas." That didn’t satisfy the kid so he reached out and grabbed the woman’s purse. Here’s the problem, Brenda had the purse strap wrapped around her wrist—twice.

The kid kept tugging at the purse, so the woman sprayed him with gasoline. The kid still didn’t let go. He kept yanking on the purse until he pulled the woman down on the ground and then he started dragging her.

At that point a gas customer at one of the other pumps stepped forward and told the kid to turn the woman loose. Slightly outnumbered, the kid decided to release the purse and jump into a waiting car with two other teens. The trio drove off, but not before a witness wrote down a description of the car and the tag number.

According to Santa Fe police the car was stolen and soon stopped by police patrols. All three of the teens were arrested and charged with auto theft, robbery and conspiracy.

The woman refused medical treatment at the gas station and wanted to go home. Later, she said she felt faint and went to bed. The next morning she complained of feeling sore all over, according to her son, a former firefighter. Her son asked her why she didn’t just give up her purse instead of fighting the mugger.

"Hell, no," was her response. "It was my purse—I was fighting to keep what was mine." You should know that Mrs. Garcia is an 83-year-old great-grandmother.