DELAWARE -- Debbie Kline heard her mother scream from the other room: "Debbie, Hunter bit me!"
Kline rushed as quickly as she could, hobbled by her oxygen tank, to find her pit bull clamped onto her 74-year-old mother, its teeth digging in.
Kline tried to pull the dog off her screaming mother repeatedly, only gaining the advantage after about 15 minutes, when she wrapped the leash around the dog's neck and pulled it away.
By the time first responders arrived, Patricia Murphy's left arm had been "mangled off," Debbie Kline recalled Friday. "It was there, lying on the floor."
State animal control officials called the mauling Monday in the Georgetown-area home one of the worst dog attacks in recent memory.
On Friday, five days after the attack, Murphy remained in critical condition at Christiana Hospital.
She underwent surgery on her face Tuesday and on her arm Thursday, and will need plastic surgery, Kline said. Puncture wounds covered her face and right arm.
But she said her mother was getting color back, and recovering slowly. "She's getting better," Kline said, choking up. "I think it's going to be OK."
The incident unfolded about noon Monday while Murphy was visiting her daughter's home on Saw Mill Road, between Georgetown and Ellendale. Kline said she stopped by almost daily to help her with chores and start cooking.
It was customary for Kline to put the 6-year-old pit bull outside or in another room when her mother visited.
Murphy left, but apparently forgot something and came back inside. Not knowing her mother had returned, Kline let the dog out.
"He always goes straight out and runs to the door," Kline said.
"I didn't know she had come back. I heard her scream ..." she said, her voice trailing off.
A hand-lettered sign on the home's door reads: "Guard dog on duty. Do not open this door!"
Neighbor Josh Embrey said his mother called 911 after hearing the woman next door screaming for help for about 10 to 15 minutes; Kline said she also called 911, and then again tried to pull the dog off her mother.
"He was just too strong, just wouldn't let go," Kline recalled Friday. "They lock their jaws, I guess."
Embrey said when rescue workers brought Murphy out of the house, "she was covered from head to toe in blood."
She was flown to Beebe Medical Center to be stabilized before being transferred to Christiana, said Sussex County EMS Director Robert Stuart.
Troopers on the scene had to shoot the dog, state police said. But Kline said that happened more than two hours later, and there was no need to do so in her house.
"I knew they were going to have to kill him, but they didn't have to do it in the bedroom," she said.
Kent County SPCA animal control officer Capt. Brian Whipple said two officers were sent to the home to recover the dog's body. It is now being tested for rabies, and then will undergo a necropsy.
"It is one of the nastiest attacks in recent years," Whipple said.
Kent SPCA Executive Director Murray Goldthwaite said Delaware has several hundred dog bites a year. The last attack this severe, he recalled, was in 2005, when a 6-year-old boy from the Delmar area was mauled by several dogs while playing in his front yard. He lost both ears and suffered injuries to his face and eyes.
The most severe attack, Goldthwaite said, was in 2002, when a 2-year-old Fox Point boy was mauled to death. That prompted Delaware to enact its dangerous dog statute.
"Attacks to that severity are very seldom," Goldthwaite said.
State police, meanwhile, are continuing to investigate. No determination has been made whether charges will be filed. Charges were not filed against the owner in the 2005 case.
(Delaware Online - Sept 24, 2011)
