Shirley Reed wasn't sure whether the gun was real even after the stranger fired a warning shot. But the 60-year-old woman wasn't going to give up the keys to her car.

He lunged at her, and as they wrestled on the ground, she felt the gun poking her hip.

"It was either him or me," Ms. Reed told police after the Tuesday night scrap outside her Frisco apartment building. So she grabbed the gun, turned the barrel toward her assailant's stomach and pulled the trigger.

A shot rang out, and her attacker said, "Oh, [expletive]."

The would-be carjacker ran away without the Mitsubishi Eclipse, but a suspect was captured a few hours later and flown to the hospital.

A handful of neighbors in the Wade Crossing Apartments in the 9300 block of Wade Boulevard rushed to the scene after hearing the gunshots around 7:45 p.m. One man called 911 and put Ms. Reed on the phone. She matter-of-factly described the attack.

"I got out of my car and took five or six steps. He came from the other side of building," Ms. Reed told the dispatcher. "He pointed a gun at me and asked me for my keys, and I said, 'No.' He said, 'Give me your keys.' I said, 'No.'

"He pointed the gun in the air and shot it. I've been around guns. , Didn't know if it was a pellet gun."

She described the handgun for the dispatcher as bigger than a derringer and about 4 or 5 inches long.

"Then we tussled. He grabbed me and tussled. Got me on the ground," Ms. Reed said. "I got a hold of the gun. It was underneath me, and I pointed it at him and pulled the trigger."

Police say victims should comply with a would-be robber or carjacker but should be ready to defend themselves if the assailant attacks.

"When he lunged toward her, the circumstances changed," said Sgt. Gina McFarlin, a Frisco police spokeswoman. "In a case like that, you fight for your life."

Ms. Reed could not be reached for comment the day after the shooting.

After being shot, the carjacker ran to an apartment just around the corner in the same complex as Ms. Reed's, according to the police report. He showed people he knew there that he was wounded and asked to be driven to the hospital, the report says.

Charles Poursoltani

The apartment resident's roommate later told police that she did not want to take the man to the hospital, saying, "This is wrong," according to the report. Instead, she called her roommate's mother. The man ran away again.

Police noticed the two girls standing outside and questioned them. They had one of the girls call 19-year-old Charles Poursoltani on his cellphone. He told police that he was sitting at the pool at an apartment complex across the street. There he was taken into custody and flown to Dallas' Parkland Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Mr. Poursoltani remained in stable but guarded condition Wednesday under police guard. He has been charged with aggravated robbery, and his bail was set at $100,000. After his release from the hospital, police said, he'll be put in the Collin County Jail.

If convicted of the first-degree felony, Mr. Poursoltani faces five to 99 years in prison.

In March 2006, Mr. Poursoltani was convicted of assaulting a family member and served 45 days in the Denton County Jail.