‘Ottawa’ Dog Brutally Mauls Woman in Vanier, Neighbours Rush to Rescue
A woman was in critical condition in hospital Saturday after a vicious mauling by a dog, believed to be a pit bull, which was only brought to an end when neighbours rushed to her rescue.
Michael Holmes had just eaten lunch with his wife and their one-and-a-half-year-old son around 12:30 p.m. when they heard cries for help coming from the house behind theirs on Marier Avenue in Vanier.
“We hopped the fence and found her in the balcony being severely mauled by this pit bull,” Holmes said. “She had significant blood loss and flesh loss as well. It was doing a number on her.”
Using a piece of wood, Holmes said he hit the dog multiple times in the head before it retreated back into the house.
“He paused long enough for us to get (the woman) out of the doorway and let the door shut,” he said.
In the meantime, his wife, Lindsay, was grabbing medical supplies to help the 50-year-old woman, who had lost chunks of flesh from her arm and leg.
“I tried to grab anything clean I could put on the wound because they were horrific gashes,” said Lindsay, who works as a first-aid instructor.
“You could see down to the fatty tissue and the tendons on her arm,” she said. “When the paramedics came they put tourniquets on her arm and leg so she was bleeding quite a bit.”
Gisele Leroux, 59, lives in a unit above Holmes and Lindsay and also jumped the fence into the neighbour’s yard to try to assist.
“If we weren’t home, the poor lady would have died; the dog did not want to let go,” she said.
In a statement, paramedics described the victim’s injuries as “significant and extensive critical wounds throughout her torso and extremities.”
Paramedics said because of the location of the incident, firefighters had to help extricate the victim, who was then transported to the Ottawa Trauma Centre in critical condition.
Police and bylaw services secured the dog.
Both Holmes and Leroux agreed that if the animal had continued for another 10 minutes, the woman would probably have been killed at the scene.
“She was losing enough blood with just what she had,” said Holmes, adding that the woman had only been calling for help for about three minutes before they intervened. “In the time I went from (getting on) the balcony to hitting the dog, he’d bit chunks of her three or four times right in front of me, while I was hitting.”
Holmes said that the dog is owned by the daughter of the woman who was attacked. The daughter lives downstairs with the dog while the mother lives upstairs and likely went downstairs to feed the dog when she was attacked, he added.
Holmes, who himself owns two dogs with his wife and son said that he’s very uncomfortable with pit bulls in the area and would like to see more restrictions placed on owners in light of the mauling.
“I’d like to see (Rideau-Vanier Ward Coun.) Mathieu Fleury and bylaw (services) do something. There’s a lot of pit bulls in Vanier and there aren’t enough people who are educated about how they can be,” Holmes said.
No relatives of the victim could be reached for comment Saturday.