A NURSE fears she may have contracted HIV after she was attacked in her own home by a “crazed” semi-naked woman she was trying to help.

The woman, who was screaming that she had been raped by a man with a gun, turned on Paula Ottley after she let her inside her home.

She attacked Miss Ottley, scratching her neck and fracturing her cheekbone, then ran up to her bedroom and tried to jump out of a window.

A team of armed police officers then arrived and threw the nurse out of her house before dragging her mattress, kitchen rug and bedding out on the street to break the fall of the woman, who was threatening to jump from a ledge.

Now doctors have told Miss Ottley, aged 41, that she is at “high risk” of contracting HIV after her attacker bled in her house during the prolonged ordeal during which the nurse suffered a number of cuts and scratches.

“I am frightened,” said Miss Ottley, fighting back tears. “They said I was at high risk and they have given me an injection and a month-long course of HIV medication which is making me violently ill. I am worried about losing my job because I can’t go in,” said the mother-of-three.

Police have told Miss Ottley how she can be reimbursed for the damage to her home.

Chief Inspector Alan Wood said: “We have re-contacted the woman, have tried to provide her with reassurance and advise her on how she can be reimbursed for damage caused to her home.”

But the auxiliary nurse at the Royal Bolton Hospital is still furious because she says none of the police officers checked to see if she was all right following her ordeal and ignored her pleas not to damage her property.

The nurse was asleep when she was woken by the woman’s screams on the street outside her home in Crosby Road, Heaton, at 1.30am on Tuesday last week.

The woman has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act.