THE LAST thing Sheila Armstrong remembers about the attack was the sight of her lover hoisting a vacuum over her.

A neighbor overheard the commotion and summoned police. Armstrong (no relation to me), awoke in Lankenau Hospital with her eyes swollen shut, a busted lower lip, a concussion and a broken arm. Fearful of returning to the apartment in Overbrook that she shared with her boyfriend and unwilling to move back in with her mother, she wound up in an emergency shelter run by Women Against Abuse.

It was a rough adjustment to be forced into what's essentially a dormitory. At the time, the shelter had only one public phone, which was in the family room. If you've ever done it, you know that sharing a telephone requires a certain amount of polite negotiating, which Armstrong just wasn't up for at the time. Her emotions roller-coastered between suicidal depression and hopelessness to homicidal rage.

"That first night, I screamed. I fussed. I cried. The emotions I went through that night, it was a lot. Part of me felt like a complete failure and almost like nothing . . . Nobody plans to be in a shelter," she recalled.

Suffice to say, her attitude was less than pleasant. "I was a little evil during this time. If you said the wrong thing to me, I'd probably cuss you out."

It wasn't as if she could boycott the phone, though. It was her lifeline to the outside world. Important calls needed to be made - her 2-year-old had ceased talking; the legal case against her ex begged for attention, and she needed financial help, as well as housing and medical insurance. Armstrong was skittish about giving out her Social Security number within earshot of other shelter residents. It was also a struggle for her to get what she needed done because of limits on how long each resident could use the phone. Agencies would place her on hold and before she knew it, her time for using the phone would be up.

Things turned around after a counselor handed Armstrong a cell phone for her personal use during her six-month stay. It was a gift from Verizon, which recycles donated phones and equipment for women and families in situations like Armstrong's.

"That phone ended up being a blessing," she told me last week. "It gave me privacy. It gave me, being in a shelter, independence again. You don't have nothing in a shelter. This cell phone, to me, made me feel like, 'I got something.'

"I was able to call people. I was able to call my mom. It was like my connection to the world," Armstrong recalled. "I took a lot of things for granted before I got in the shelter."

These day, she's an administrative assistant for state Rep. Rosita C. Youngblood and lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her now-8-year-old son, who is again speaking. She's also a board member of Women Against Abuse.

Armstrong wants people to drop out their used cell phones and equipment in the bins at Verizon Wireless stores for distribution through the company's HopeLine program. Any old broken-down phone and phone accessories will be accepted. Usable phones are recycled or refurbished and then either distributed to abused women or sold, with the proceeds being used to purchase more phones for donation.

Since the program began, about 6,500 phones have been given to organizations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware that assist abused women.

The national program recently gained a high-profile supporter. Maria Shriver, wife of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, donated her phone after getting caught breaking her state's cell-phone ban by using it while driving. "I invite anyone else who wants to recycle their old phone to join me," she said.

It's a small thing but something that can make a big difference in the lives of abused women. As Armstrong pointed out, "It's not always about money."

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.