San Francisco  - A emergency room nurse in Portland, Oregon has killed a hit man who tried to murder her with a hammer after being hired by her estranged husband, according to local TV station KATU Thursday.

Susan Kuhnhausen, 51, choked the man to death after he attacked her as she returned home from work earlier this month. On Wednesday police arrested her husband Michael Kuhnhausen, 58, charging that he hired the dead man, 59-year-old Edward Dalton Haffey, to murder his wife. He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder. He was ordered held on 500,000 dollar bail.

Susan Kuhnhausen was not seriously hurt in the attack and was released from hospital after treatment for minor injuries.

The couple were in the process of getting a divorce, and she told officers "her husband was distraught about the divorce and wanting to reconcile but that she was insisting on the divorce," prosecutors said in a court affidavit. (dpa)