Another dog attack
Portmore woman relates painful ordeal outside Green Bay Range
JUST over eight hours before legislators in the Lower House passed the Dogs (Liability for Attacks) Bill on November 17, a woman was attacked and bitten by a pack of the animals during her usual early morning run in Portmore, St Catherine.
The woman, who opted not to be named, received bites on both legs resulting in her having to pay a doctor $34,500 for treatment and $8,000 to fill a prescription.
The attack, she related, occurred about 6:30 am on the road outside the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) Green Bay Range.
“I usually walk with some elderly people who have been doing it for like 30-odd years, but normally, when I get to the foot of the hill I run up, leaving them,” she told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday, adding that she has been exercising on the hill for about two years.
“From ever since there has always been this hole in the gate [at the range], but the dogs never really run out. They’ve always been in there barking,” she said.
The woman said when she got near to the gate, the dogs ran out towards her.
“I was trying to chase them away by saying, ‘Go away, go away’. I backed up and fell, and that was it, ennuh. They pounced on me,” she related.
“Ah fight, ah fight, ah fight, ah kick, ah thump. Hear how them come offa mi, one a come up inna mi face and mi go so wham! an lick him, because mi say mi a go fight,” the woman said.
The force of the blow, she said, flung the dog off her, after which it started yelping.
“When mi lick di dog an him fly off and start bawl, a so di res’ a dem retreat,” she said.
“One of the security came out and him say, ‘Girl, yuh a real fighter. If yuh neva fight dem, dem woulda maul yuh’,” the woman told the Observer.
Asked if she knew the breed of the dogs that attacked her, she said she was not sure.
“Three of them look like mongrel, but there were two that were big,” she said.
“When they were coming towards me I say, ‘Jesus Christ, five dog!’ I was trying to back away from them to see if I could tek up two stones, but mi fall down,” she added.
She said after the ordeal, other early morning joggers came to her aid. She called her son who drove up the hill to get her and take her home, as she was unable to walk.
“Mi feel like mi paralysed, because the bite dem a burn mi,” she said, adding that when she got home and took off her jogging suit she saw flesh dropping from the bleeding wounds.
She went to a private doctor, who treated and stitched the wounds, administered injections, and prescribed medicine.
Now, she is looking at taking legal action, adding that she shared her ordeal with the newspaper in order to alert other people who exercise in that area. In fact, she said one of the women in her exercise group told her that the day after her encounter, the dogs attacked another woman. However, that woman was walking with a stick and was able to keep them away from her.
The woman also said she reported the dog attack to the Bridgeport police.
Seventeen amendments were made to the Dogs (Liability for Attacks) Bill, which provides for criminal and civil liability for an owner of a dog that attacks, injures, and/or causes the death of a person.
Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, who piloted the Bill, has emphasised that the legislation, once passed by the Senate, is to serve as a deterrent and is not intended to create a criminal record for dog owners.