CANADA -- A Hull man is lucky to have kept his arm after his own dog nearly gnawed it off in a vicious attack Sunday morning.
The man, identified by neighbours as Gordon Kinistino, was attacked while he was having a heated telephone conversation shortly before 8:45 a.m.
Neighbour Gerald Brunet said a dog the man was looking after got spooked by the yelling and attacked Kinistino. Then his own dog, which police said was a pit bull, also attacked him, biting his arm and leg.
The man, bleeding profusely, made his way from the bedroom to the porch behind the multi-unit building at 72 rue St. Etienne in Hull.
Brunet called 911 when he heard the man’s screams for help.
“You could tell he wasn’t fooling around. He was gushing blood,” he said, adding another neighbour tried to help but one of the dogs lunged at him too.
“It was his own dog that was doing all the damage,” he said.
“I saw him come out and his arm was ripped up. There was a big hole,” said another neighbour, gripping her forearm near the elbow.
When police and paramedics arrived, the man was outside on his porch and police shot the dog twice, Brunet said, pointing to the spot in the yard where parts of the dog’s brains and blood still lay. Streaks of blood also remained on the porch Monday evening
Inside, police found a gruesome scene with blood covering the apartment floor. They also found the second dog in the bathroom, but it was aggressive and couldn’t be handled, said Gatineau police Lt. Claude Vaillancourt.
Police had the building evacuated and shot the dog dead while the man was rushed to hospital.
“They couldn’t do anything but have them shot,” Brunet said. “Once they turn on you, that’s it. He was bit up pretty bad.”
Meantime, Brunet, who was once the building’s caretaker, spent two and a half hours cleaning up the blood and gore in the man’s apartment after police and paramedics left.
“If you don’t get it up quick, it’ll never come up,” he said of the task.
Though police said the man was at risk of losing his arm, Brunet said Kinistino was released from hospital Sunday night.
“He’s not too good, he’s still pretty shaken,” he said. “He got himself pretty badly scared, you know. It was his family pet.”
(Ottawa Sun - Oct 3, 2011)
