A little girl is in critical condition after she was stabbed in the back and possibly her neck Tuesday, but authorities believe she will survive.

The girl's mother, Ann Carimbocas of Long Island, underwent a psychiatric evaluation Tuesday. She was later arrested and charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. Information on an attorney wasn't immediately available.

A source close to the investigation told NBC 4 New York Carimbocas and her daughter were visiting the home of a friend Tuesday in Springfield Gardens when the mother attacked the girl.

The son of the friend intervened and restrained the knife-wielding mother, according to the source. He was injured in the leg.

Neighbors watched as the girl was loaded onto an ambulance.

"They brought the child out on a stretcher, and the child was incoherent and very wobbly, you know," said a neighbor.

Carimbocas was restrained as she was wheeled out of the home. Witnesses described her behaving in a bizarre manner -- singing in the back of the patrol car even while her child was bleeding.

"She didn't look scared. She didn't look troubled. She looked like something went wrong mentally, because she was laid back and just screaming," said another neighbor.

As news of the stabbing reached Carimbocas' Suffolk County neighborhood, people who knew the family were stunned.

"I'm very shocked," said their landlord's sister Elsie Vorbe. "She's a very loving mother, she really cared for her child."

Police said they have recovered the knife from the home where the attack unfolded. Deciphering the motive for the mother-on-daughter attack may prove more difficult.

Police are trying to get in touch with the girl's father to determine what may have happened in the days and hours leading up to the attack.

The girl was taken to Jamaica Hospital, and is expected to recover.

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