Donna Pugh, a 48-year-old grandmother living in Auburn, is recovering from surgery today resulting from injuries she sustained when she was run over by her own car.

According to published reports, Pugh allowed her 8-year-old grandson to get behind the wheel of her car to keep the vehicle in neutral while she opened a gate.

The young boy was unable to keep the car in neutral so it rolled over Pugh while he was still behind the wheel.

"Because the car went up onto the hillside is probably what saved her life," said Lt. Lee Lapsky with the Auburn Police Department. "It put it at an angle ... where she was up underneath."

Pugh underwent surgery Monday night for a broken arm. She also suffered 19 broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder from the incident.

Pugh said she wanted her grandson to keep her Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme in neutral while she opened the gate at a self-storage lot in Auburn.

Lapsky said the car apparently had transmission problems so Pugh could not move the vehicle forwards or backwards. When Pugh tried to enter her code into the gate, the gate would not accept her code for one reason or another and that’s when she employed her grandson’s help.

"She should have turned it off prior to letting him get behind the wheel," Lapsky said. "But that’s not what happened."

It was her intention to push the car backwards while the boy kept the car in neutral.

"When he pulled it down into neutral he went too far and put the car into drive. The car started moving forward," said Lapsky. "He panicked, went to hit the break and hit the gas pedal instead."

Video surveillance caught the whole ordeal on tape. The boy is seen getting into the driver’s seat and a few seconds later, the car rolls over Pugh and crashes into the gate.

Pugh was still conscious and alert and had her grandson bring her purse over so she could call 911.

"It’s an unfortunate situation ... what happened to her. A hard lesson for her to learn," said Lapsky.

"If she had turned the engine off and put the car in neutral," Lapsky explained. "It would have been a better thing to do. It is a very heart-wrenching situation," he said. "She was a very, very lucky woman to have even survived it."

Pugh’s family told media that the grandson was traumatized but not physically injured during the ordeal.

Pugh is expected to make a full recovery.