Dogs maul ou mense: Two elderly people wounded in separate attacks
|Published
EAR BITTEN OFF: A pit bull mauled John Hendricks, 64
Two sickly elderly people were left severely injured after they were mauled by vicious dogs in separate incidents.
A woman was attacked by her neighbour’s Rottweiler in Delft, while a Mitchells Plain man’s ear was ripped off by a pit bull.
On Wednesday afternoon, John Hendricks, 64, was walking home from the shop in Gold Road, Rocklands, when a pitbull attacked him out of the blue.
A traumatised John says: “A young boy opened the gate and a pitbull came out. I fell down and tried to stop it from coming for my face.
“It tore the flesh of both of my arms and then it went for my ear. We kept it [the ear] but I was told by the doctors it was not going to be reattached.”
Eyewitness Desmond Dean says he tried to stop the dog from attacking John who suffers from epilepsy, but couldn’t.
Desmond says: “I grabbed a spade and hit the dog but it wouldn’t let go of John. We fought the dog off the victim for 20 minutes, eventually a man from that house came out and effortlessly took the dog away from the area.
When the Daily Voice visited the pit bull owner yesterday, we were told she was not at home. It was not clear whether the dog would be brought back to the property or not.
On Monday, the elderly mother of Western Cape Missing Persons Unit founder Candice van der Rheede was injured after she was mauled by her neighbour’s Rottweiler named Mason.
Ahania Sobotker, 69, was standing with Jan Meiring when the chained dog attacked her.
Candice explains: “It was at about 10:10am on Monday, my mother was attacked by my neighbour’s Rottweiler.
“The dog is tied up but he has a long chain that allows him to walk until by the road because my neighbours don’t have a fence.
“The owner of the dog called my mother and as she was approaching him, she bordered the front of the house and the pavement. The dog grabbed her and brought her to the ground, and started taking chunks from her.”
Meiring says he had called Ahania over to give her some books but forgot that Mason could reach the front door.
Meiring says: “I tried to help her and hit the dog with the plank, but it continued to bite her. I couldn’t do anything more than that. This was out of my control.”
Law Enforcement spokesperson Wayne Dyson says Mason has been removed from the property.
Meiring says he is sad to lose his guard dog: “I will now have to get another dog, a pitbull, because I want to keep criminals away.”