FLORIDA -- A Mount Eden woman was severely injured Thursday in an attack by a family pet.
Regina Whitaker, 40, and her son, Ronald Hampton, 22, both of Spencer County, are recovering at the University of Louisville hospital after being rescued from a pit bull attack by the owners of Carriss's Grocery.
The unusual twist is that dog belonged to the victim and, up to that point, had been a docile house pet.
Police say that Whitaker and Hampton were driving down Mount Eden Road near Southville with their three dogs, the pit bull and two smaller dogs, when the pit bull went berserk.
Shelby County Sheriff’s Det. Jason Rice said Whitaker and her son had been driving around looking at rental property when the pit bull became agitated by some dogs barking in the neighborhood and started attacking mother and son.
“They pulled into Carriss's Grocery, screaming for help, and that’s when the Lisbys helped them get out of the truck, while containing the dog inside the cab,” Rice said.
He added that Whitaker’s injuries were much worse than her son’s, so much so that he said he thinks she could lose her arm, it was so badly mangled.
“She was undergoing surgery at U of L last [Thursday] night, but I haven’t checked on her this morning yet,” he said Friday.
“Last night when I went to bed, I was still shaking, it was so terrible,” said Vivian Lisby, who assisted her husband, June, the store’s owner, in rescuing Whitaker from the vicious attack.
She said that Whitaker’s injuries were horrendous.
“Her arm was really terrible. It was up on the shoulder, like the dog was going for her throat,” she said. “There was no bone left. He had chewed it in two.”
June Lisby said he had just come out of his house and was walking toward the store when the pickup truck pulled in next to the grocery.
“I heard people screaming for help, and I ran over there to see what was going on,” he said.
“She [Whitaker] was screaming, ‘Get a gun!’ and June thought at first that somebody was attacking her,” Vivian Lisby said.
June Lisby said that when he got up to the truck, the window was all steamed up, and he could hardly see inside. Then he spotted the dog.
Lisby said her husband began to pound on the passenger side of the truck to get draw the dog’s attention toward himself and away from the truck’s occupants, so they could escape out the other side of the cab, a strategy that worked. Then he slammed the door, trapping the dog inside.
“The dog was growling and snarling and snapping,” he said.
“Before she got out of the truck, she was screaming and screaming, but when she got out, she just collapsed on the road,” Lisby said. “She had stopped screaming; she wasn’t crying. I think she was in shock.
“There was blood all over her, her shirt was just covered in blood, and there were pieces of flesh and bone all over the truck.”
Lisby said the dog had also attacked Hampton in the face area, but that a Carhartt jacket he was wearing protected him from being more seriously bitten.
“When they got out, he just sat down and cried with his head down,” she said.
Rice said the dog was taken to the Shelby County Animal Shelter.
“There is no issue with the dog concerning our office,” he said. “The victim is the owner of the dog; it’s not a case where the dog has attacked someone else. We just responded to make sure the scene was safe to get the patients out and the dog removed to the animal shelter.”
Lisby said she knew the family vaguely, that they lived on Van Buren Road on the Spencer County side of Mount Eden. She said she had met the husband, Kenneth, before, but not his wife.
She added that Whitaker’s father-in-law came into the store later that day and told them that the dog had never shown any vicious tendencies before.
“He said it stayed in the house and was just like the biggest baby on earth,” she said.
Rice said Whitaker was lucky the Lisbys came to Whitaker’s rescue.
Vivian Lisby echoed that sentiment.
“I don’t know what would have happened to them if they had been on a road somewhere where they couldn’t have gotten help,” she said.
“It could have been just plum terrible,” June Lisby said.
(The Sentinel News - February 17, 2012)
