‘It’s killing her,’ teen tells 911 during pit bull attack

LAUDERHILL — “It’s attacking her right now, it’s killing her,” a 17-year-old boy frantically told a 911 operator as he watched his aunt being mauled by one of her dogs.

Yasmin Adam, 43, was visiting from South Carolina when one of her three dogs turned on her in a relative’s Lauderhill apartment late Monday afternoon. She remained in critical condition Tuesday after she underwent surgery overnight.

“She was alone in the apartment when at least one of the dogs attacked her,” Maj. Rick Rocco, a spokesman of the Lauderhill Police Department, said. “The reason for the attack is unknown at this time.”

Lauderhill police on Tuesday released the twominute audio recording of a 911 call Adam’s nephew

placed around 5 p.m. when he got home and found one of the dogs on top of her, biting her arms.

“She’s screaming right now, it’s chewing her arms,” the panicked teen told the 911 operator.

Adam is heard screaming in the background while her nephew yells at the pit bull attacking her.

“What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do?” the teen screamed while on the phone. “Let her go, let her go, let her go!”

The attack was still happening when first responders got to the apartment at Calypso Cay, in the 4100 block of Northwest 21st Street.

“They get there and they can hear the attack,” Rocco said. “They open the door and the officer sees the woman on the ground in the living room being attacked by the dog.”

The officer first tried striking the dog with her baton to get it off Adam, Rocco said.

“That didn’t work, so she tried her pepper spray,” Rocco said. “That didn’t work, so finally she had to resort to her firearm and shoot the dog to get it off of the woman.”

After shooting the dog, police dragged Adam from the apartment and barricaded the door to the firstfloor apartment until they could figure out how to subdue the three canines and get them out.

Both of Adam’s arms were severely injured. She was rushed to Broward Health Medical Center where she underwent surgery, Rocco said.

All three animals were pit bull mixes. The shot dog “was put down” because of its injury, said Lisa Mendheim, a spokeswoman for Broward County Animal Care and Adoption, which is caring for the other two animals.

The fate of the other two dogs will be up to Adam, Mendheim said. “They are here in safekeeping. They’re her pets. So, we’re just keeping them while she’s hospitalized.”

The shot dog “was very much alive” when it was removed from the apartment hours after the attack, Rocco said.

Concerned neighbors gathered in the apartment’s center courtyard on Monday night, when the dogs were still inside the barricaded apartment. Some said they had seen Adam walking her three dogs.

“I remember her saying her dogs don’t bite,” said neighbor Stephanie Colon.