Pitbull pair maul gardener and dog
AN EAST London gardener mauled by two rampaging pitbulls on Tuesday morning is calling for the dogs’ owners to compensate him for his injuries.
Residents in Vergenoeg’s Skipper Road were left traumatised after the incident and now fear for their children, who often play in the streets.
The gardener, David Ntabeni, 39, of East Bank, sustained deep flesh wounds to both forearms and bite injuries to his left leg.
“Both the pitbulls attacked me suddenly when I showed up for work. I was screaming in pain during the attack, I thought they would finish me,” he said.
Ntabeni said the dogs’ owner, Deidre Lottering, was standing close by at the time of the attack but failed to do anything to stop them.
“I was in a lot of pain. I screamed at her [Lottering] to stop her pitbulls but she did nothing,” Ntabeni said.
“I could not sleep last night because I was in so much pain. I am still in pain and they must pay for my blood.” The Dispatch visited Lottering, but she did not want to comment.
“You have the story wrong. My dogs were involved, but I don’t want to say anything further. I have nothing to say,” Lottering said.
She then insisted that her dogs were not responsible for the attack on Ntabeni.
Ntabeni managed to get into a passerby’s car, ending his painful ordeal.
“If it was not for that person who let me into his car, I believe I would have been dead.”
He was taken to Empilweni Gompo healthcare centre where he received stitches.
It is alleged the two pitbulls, Cody and Caesar, often roam the streets unattended.
Ntabeni opened a case against Lottering at Buffalo Flats police station yesterday.
After Ntabeni escaped, the dogs turned on a Jack Russell and mauled it.
The Jack Russell, called Floppy and owned by Simamkele Ndzamela was left lying in a pool of blood after neighbours managed to chase the two pitbulls away and is fighting for his life at the SPCA. “We heard screaming and when we went outside, I saw my baby being mauled by these two vicious dogs,” Ndzamela said.
Another resident, Maude van Zyl, who witnessed the incident, said she feared for her young children with the pitbulls roaming around.
Ndzamela said she had to pay a R750 admission fee for Floppy at the SPCA.
“This is going to be a huge amount of money for all the surgeries he will need. They [the dog owners] need to foot this bill.”—