Posted on 06/10/2005 5:02:58 AM PDT by kanawa
Police say two Bluffton men probably saved a woman’s life on the city’s west side Wednesday night after three vicious dogs attacked her as she mowed her grass.
The incident, however, came as no surprise to some neighbors who feared the dogs would attack someone someday.
Wells County EMS rushed Jane Brown, 69, of 1118 W. Market St., to Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne after she was mauled by three mix-breed dogs around 6:43 p.m. that somehow escaped from a fenced-in area next to her house.
Police said late Wednesday night that Brown was in stable condition after she suffered severe lacerations to both arms and legs and an injury to her shoulder and lower back.
The owner of the dogs, Kristen R. Ebright, was given three vicious animal citations and is expected to appear in city court Monday. A judge will decide what to do with the dogs.
~~snip~~
Brown could face reconstructive surgery because of the extent of the injuries she suffered to her left arm.
A Bluffton father and son, Randy and Clint Reynolds, heard screaming as the dogs attacked Brown. They ran with baseball bats to scare off the dogs and help ed Brown until police and EMS arrived.
“If they had not come over here and got those dogs off of that lady, the dogs could have killed her,” said Sgt. Jim Mettler of the Bluffton Police Department. “Those dogs were aggressive.”
The incident unfolded around 6:30 p.m. or so when Brown came outside to mow her yard.
She had made about two passes with a push mower when the dogs, who had been housed inside a fence at 1112 W. Market St. (just east of where Brown lives), somehow got out.
One of the mix-breed dogs started to attack Brown and the others joined in as neighbors heard screams.
Randy Reynolds, who lives at 1127 W. Washington St., just south of Brown’s house, was outside mowing his yard at the time. He had seen Brown come outside about 10 minutes earlier and begin to cut her grass just before dark.
“I was mowing and then everybody just started to scream,” Reynolds said at the scene. “When (my son and I) came around the corner, they were on her.”
“My son and I grabbed ball bats and came running.”
As Clint Reynolds approached Brown, the dogs were still on her. He began kicking to try to get the dogs back.
“I was just trying to get the dogs off of her and make sure she was alright,” Clint Reynolds said.
The Reynolds chased two of the dogs back into the fence they had escaped from and kept the other one contained in the area until police arrived.
Several neighbors called 911 at 6:41 p.m. to report an elderly female had been mauled by three vicious dogs.
Bluffton Police Officer Dennis Fiscus, who was less than a mile away, was the first officer on the scene.
After checking on Brown, Fiscus, along with the Reynolds, tried to keep the dogs away from Brown until EMS arrived.
Mettler and Bluffton Police Officer Chip Swindell quickly arrived at the scene and summoned an animal control officer to capture the third dog that police had surrounded.
“There was still one running at large when we got here,” Mettler said.
Authorities made repeated attempts to snare the aggressive dog but were unable to get the noose around its neck.
Swindell used a Taser to immobilize the dog as animal control officer Jesse Marley put the snare around its neck.
After authorities captured the dog, one of the two dogs that the Reynolds had chased into the fence jumped up and bit Marley on the left arm, but neither Marley nor police realized the dog had just bit him.
As Marley and police took the dog they had just captured to the animal control truck, the dog that had bitten Marley seconds earlier jumped up on the fence again to try to bite him.
“He jumped up on the fence and was going after Jesse again,” Fiscus said.
Fiscus used pepper spray to fend off the dog.
A second ambulance was called to the scene around 6:52 p.m. to transport Marley to Bluffton Regional Medical Center. He was released later Wednesday night.
EMS rushed Brown to Lutheran at 7:03 p.m. Mettler said he had never seen anyone bitten by dogs as bad as Brown was since he has been on the Bluffton Police Department.
Police praised the Reynolds father and son for their quick response.
“If they had not been there, she could be dead,” Fiscus said. “In my opinion, those guys saved her life.”
Randy Reynolds said the dogs had been aggressive for the past six months.
“They have always come to the fence and tried to get her when she mowed,” he said.
“I knew it was going to happen sooner or later.”
Mettler said police had been called to the area numerous times because of barking dog complaints and reports of the dogs being aggressive. The dogs, however, were always in a fence and were never running loose.
All three dogs were taken to the Bluffton-Wells County Animal Shelter.
Police don't shoot the dogs
"...somehow escaped from a fenced-in area..."
Jumped fence? Gate left open? Dug under fence?
"...the dog that had bitten Marley seconds earlier jumped up on the fence again to try to bite him."
Any fence that is low enough for a dog to bite over is not adequate containment.
Why are these animals still alive?
Tazers and Pepper Spray?
Darn Labrador Retievers running wild again, no doubt...
Residential neighborhood?
Bullets have been known to stray?
You peeked.
A medium to large size dog's breed is, as always, not relevant.
They can all inflict serious damage.
What responsible owners need to do is to ensure that incidents like this don't happen.
The value of reports like this is to learn what went wrong.
Sometimes we learn something new...most of the time it just reinforces something we should already know.
I have seen large breed dogs able to scale an 8 foot fence..
gotta put a roof over their kennels..
I would think a taser would only enrage an animal further..
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Doubletap Ammo's 10mm +p+ 180 gr gold dots even better
vicious dogs also do not like a running Stihl Farm Boss
There was a fellow who couldn't figure out how his dog kept escaping from the fenced backyard.
The fence was quite high and seemed impossible to jump.
He setup a video camera to discover how the dog was doing it.
Turned out that there was a tree about four feet from the fence.
The dog used his back legs on the tree and his front on the fence and shinnied up and over.
I'm just amazed the press didn't identify these mutts as "pit bulls."
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