Continuing ministry after attack is ‘what God wants’
TULSA — Beverly Wright walked with a cane, slowly, avoiding uneven ground Wednesday morning as she went door-to-door on N Delaware Avenue inviting people to an upcoming Jehovah’s Witnesses convention.
A week ago, she had what she hopes will be her last of five skin grafts to repair wounds she received March 19 when a pit bull terrier mauled her so severely that doctors told her she might lose her leg.
Wright, 43, could have escaped injury that Tuesday morning when an 80pound pit bull terrier burst through the front door of a house in the 200 block of N Lewis Place and attacked her ministry companion and longtime friend, Irene Parker, 78.
But it never occurred to her not to help her friend.
Both women were severely injured in the attack. And both knew their injuries would not keep them from going door to door with the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Six weeks after the attack, in early May, Wright returned to her ministry.
“The doctors are amazed how fast I am healing,” she said.
She goes out weekly, usually tiring after two or three hours.
She does it, she said, “because it’s what Jehovah wants … to let people know what God wants.”
At first, she was a little nervous, she said.
“But I realized it was one of those things that happened. It doesn’t happen all the time. That helped me get out of the car.”
She has been going door to door with the Jehovah’s Witnesses for 18 years, and nothing like that ever happened before, she said.
Parker’s recovery has been slower.
She went off her pain medication a week ago and is still in constant pain, but is able to sleep, she said this week at her daughter’s Sand Springs home, where she is recuperating.
“I’ll be glad when I can get back to my ministry. It’ll be awhile. When I get better, I’m ready to go out again. The only thing is, I’m going to be more cautious.
“I’m doing better and I’m happy about it … All the prayers and cards and gifts have been very encouraging,” she said.
The events of that day three months ago are still fresh in Wright’s mind.
She was two houses away from Parker when the dog attacked.
“I heard the screams and ran down there.
“I pulled the dog off of her. I had it in a head lock,” said Wright, who is just 5 feet tall.
The dog squirmed free and continued to attack Parker. When Wright pulled it off a second time, it turned its attack on her, tearing at her arms and then dragging her across the yard by her leg.
Wright grabbed a baseball bat from the dog’s owner, who was standing by screaming, and struck the dog twice before losing her grip on the bat.
The dog continued to tear into her leg.
“I was seeing him do it. It was awful,” she said.
The attack ended when a man working two blocks away heard the screams, grabbed a gun from his truck and shot the dog.
Parker has little memory of the attack that nearly killed her.
When she knocked on the door that day, she said, she heard a dog barking.
As soon as a woman opened the door, the dog charged through the screen door, knocked her to the ground and attacked her head.
Both women were taken to St. John Medical Center, where doctors used several hundred stitches on each of them to close their wounds, and then placed them in intensive care.
Parker has had five surgeries, with more scheduled. Wright said she still has dreams about the dog.
The two women have been in contact with Mike Harrell, who shot the dog.
“He’s very polite and humble,” said Mike Elliott, Parker’s son-in-law.
Harrell saved Wright’s life and Wright saved Parker’s life, Elliott said.
“And I believe Jehovah had a hand in it,” he said. “We believe angels accompany us in ministry.”
The women have had no contact with the dog’s owner.
Wright said accounts are set up in the women’s names at the Bank of Oklahoma to help with medical expenses not covered by insurance.