MASSACHUSETTS -- During 40 years as a veterinarian, Dr. Neal Andelman has removed toys and other items from dogs’ stomachs. But until Thursday, he had never retrieved human body parts, as best the doctor could recall, said Lou Berman, a hospital administrator for the New England Animal Medical Center in West Bridgewater.
Thursday afternoon, Andelman operated post mortem on a pit bull that had bitten a Bridgewater woman and swallowed part of her nose and mouth.
The area of the 71-year-old woman's face that was bitten off, police said, was from half way down the nose to the midpoint of the chin.
The male pit bull was euthanized and operated upon at the request of the Boston hospital treating Normanda Torres, whose face was mauled by the 50-pound dog in the kitchen of her home.
Staff at the animal clinic were badly shaken about the attack and the gruesome aftermath, said Berman.
“It’s a very horrible event. We all feel badly for the victim,” he said.
Torres was taken by a MedFlight helicopter to Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, after the attack about 11 a.m. Thursday inside her family’s Brian Road home in Bridgewater, where police said she had moved just three days earlier.
She was listed in critical condition Friday morning.
The 1-1/2 year-old pit bull named Rex had bitten two people previously, the family told police. Both were described as minor incidents that went unreported until Thursday, said police.
Bridgewater Health Agent Eric Badger, who also serves as the town’s animal control officer, responded to the scene with his personal crate, but it was too small to carry the animal. So Badger called for backup from Whitman-Abington animal control, who with police, assisted.
“I’ve seen animal-on-animal attacks before, but nothing like this. It’s very, very rare,” said Badger.
Authorities confined the dog inside the house and then led him down the front stairs to the crate outside, as police officers stood nearby, ready to protect themselves and others with guns and stun guns.
Initially, they were to take Rex to a Lakeville animal shelter to quarantine him. Typically, after an attack, a dog is quarantined for 10 days while police write up a report and then a decision is made by town officials as to whether the dog should be euthanized.
But within hours of the attack, hospital authorities called Bridgewater police to request the dog be euthanized immediately to recover parts of the woman’s face from the pit bull’s stomach, said police.
At the West Bridgewater animal hospital, other clients were asked to take their pets and move to other areas to make room for the pit bull in case the animal was still agitated from the attack – and the dog was upset when he was brought in, said Berman.
“We knew what our role was going to be, and that was to try and retrieve whatever was retrievable,” said Berman, who did not go into detail as to what parts of Torres’ face were removed from the dog’s stomach.
By 3 p.m., Bridgewater police and emergency personnel picked up the body parts, which had been washed and packed in ice, to transport them to Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
“We’re feeling positive at least about our role, that we were able to do the surgery in a fairly quick turnaround,” a process that took about 20 minutes, said Berman. “I hope it has a positive outcome.
“We’re all rooting for a recovery,” he added.
It was about 11 a.m. when police and emergency personnel first responded to the home after they received a 911 call from the family.
“At the time of the incident, the victim was in the kitchen standing at the sink. It appears that the dog lunged at the face of the victim, unprovoked,” police Lt. Thomas Schlatz said in a press release.
Badger said the trigger for the attack may have been a “territorial” response.
He said a bite, even a small one, is the first warning sign and should be a signal to owners that the dog needs to be retrained.
“Once they’ve attacked a person in this manner and they’ve had the taste of blood,” said Badger, “it’s likely they’re not going to come back. You’re taking too much of a risk to put the dog back out there in society.”
Badger said the pit bull and a second dog that also lives at the house, a terrier mix, had updated rabies shots and were registered with the town.
The family, who called New England Animal Medical Center to authorize the euthanization, declined comment.
Hospital staff at Brigham and Women’s said Torres was in recovery after surgery Thursday evening. No further information was available Thursday night.
(Enterprise News - Dec 2, 2011)
