BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — The neighbor who found a badly injured child after an alleged attack by his father said she's haunted by what she saw.

Tonya Hammond said Monday that she discovered 4-year-old Angelo Mendoza Jr. late last month lying naked in a bloody heap on the floor of an Ohio Drive apartment.

Bakersfield police would later discover that one of the boy's eyes was missing and the other eye was damaged beyond repair. Investigators said the child told them, "My daddy ate my eyes."

Tonya Hammond lives next to the Mendoza family in one of the Ohio Drive apartments. She said she heard yelling coming from the family's unit when the alleged abuse was happening on April 28. A few minutes later, she and another child decided to check on the boy, who they called Angel.

"Angel was on the floor, unconscious and he was naked," Hammond said. "You could tell he was breathing, because his stomach was going up and down."

Hammond called 911 and followed directions until police, fire crews and an ambulance got there. She said she didn't know exactly what the child's injuries were, because she didn't want to get too close and cause additional harm.

"You could see skin or something coming down, and you could see blood," Hammond said.

Hammond has put up a cross in the yard in honor of Angel. She said the perky little boy had been eating cookies in her apartment the day before the attack.

The boy's father, Angelo Mendoza Sr., is in a wheelchair with a spinal cord injury. Police said he had rolled away from the complex after the alleged abuse occurred and started hacking away at his leg with an ax.

Police reported that the father was showing signs of being under the influence of the psychedelic drug best known as PCP or angel dust.

Mendoza is now hospitalized at Kern Medical Center. He's set to be in court Wednesday on felony charges of aggravated mayhem, torture, willful cruelty to a child and inflicting injury upon a child. Kern County District Attorney's officials said Mendoza's court appearance may depend on his medical condition.

On Monday, some of Mendoza's relatives were at his apartment, but they declined to comment on the case.

The child's mother said last week that she had been at the apartment hours before the attack.

"My son was crying 'Mommy, mommy, I want to go with you.' I pushed him back inside the door," said the boy's mother, calling herself Desirae but not disclosing her last name. "It was kind of hard."

Desirae said the boy's father yelled at her to leave and threatened to call police.

Hammond, the neighbor, said it seemed like Mendoza was a good father until the week of the attack. Before that, she only saw him sometimes short-tempered.

"It didn't seem anything out of the ordinary before that," Hammond said. "It's just like that week he started acting different."

Mendoza has a criminal history, however. He has 22 other cases filed in Kern County going back to 1995. Some of the previous cases involve drug use, and a case filed in 1998 involves charges of battery and burglary.

Both the child's father and mother were charged with willful cruelty to a child in 2006. Both parents were under the influence of drugs in that case, according to the district attorney's office.

The child's mother said the boy, Angel, is doing OK. She said Angel is now in the care of a foster family.

Hammond said the little boy gave her a small dog, and the dog, Princess, gives her comfort and companionship. Hammond said she's worried about Angel and the trauma he went though.

"It's still hard to sleep at night because I'm still waiting for (Angel) to walk through the door like he usually did," Hammond said.