Exclusive: Long Island Girl Speaks Of Being Trapped At Home With An Intruder

PLAINVIEW, N.Y. (CBS 2) -- A Long Island teenager is talking about her terrifying ordeal, trapped inside her home with an armed burglar.

With no where to run,  she managed to keep her cool, and made a decision that helped her get out alive, CBS 2's Jennifer McLogan reports exclusively.

Imagine this nightmare: someone armed and violent breaks into your home -- unaware you are there -- and you hide in the closet. But then his steps come closer and the door opens.

That's the plight of this victim, who may have truly saved her own life.

"I yelled 'dad! Dad!' and then there's no answer and I thought there's something wrong and I check out the window and there's no car there either," Emily Luong said.

McLogan: "Your dad was gone and that's when you heard the steps coming up?"

Luong: Yes, my dad was at work, so there was like no one home. I was just home alone."

So Luong tiptoed to the top of the steps.

"It's all dark and I just peer over real quick to see who it is and I just see this dark male figure. And I get really scared. So I run back up, turn off my lights and hide in my closet," Luong said.

Luong is a college freshman home on break from NYU. Despite fearing for her life, she was able to muster brave intelligence.

" I hear him coming up and I'm just like ... I call the police really quick. On my phone a real quick message and hang up so he doesnt hear me," Luong said.

McLogan: "You called the police as the steps are coming closer and closer?"

Luong: "Yeah, I was really liked scared."

Police said the suspect was armed with crow bars and possibly a revolver. He had pried open windows and a locked sliding door. Luong could hear him muttering angrily at her dog.

"My dog starts barking and so he takes my dog and actually puts it in my room and closes the door," she said.

Luong dared not breathe.

"And I hear him rummaging through my parents' room and bathroom and the next room, too. And before he gets to my room I see police cars are here and he runs out," Luong said.

What she described is just everybody's horror.

Luong's father, Allen, was frantic. He had received an alarming text message from his daughter  holed up in her closet.

"While she was in the closet she texted me. So I saw the message. And I was thinking of calling but then I was afraid she was hiding. And if the phone rang, the guy might know where she was. So I was rushing out to the car and drove home, and called police again," Allen Luong said.

Police were swarming their Plainview home. Luong was safe. The suspect had run out the back and fled with the jewelry he'd stolen.

He remains at large.

Police say earlier in the day, less than a mile away, an elderly Plainview couple were robbed at gunpoint in their home when they surprised an armed intruder.

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