COLORADO -- A Longmont man is recovering from severe injuries after a neighbor’s pit bull attacked him Friday outside a home in the 2000 block of Frontier St.
Frank Godines was bringing his next door neighbor’s developmentally disabled daughter back to her house. She had wandered into his yard.
He rang the doorbell and somehow the family’s pit bull broke through the white, aluminum door and went after Godines.
Frank Godines was bringing his next door neighbor’s developmentally disabled daughter back to her house. She had wandered into his yard.
He rang the doorbell and somehow the family’s pit bull broke through the white, aluminum door and went after Godines.
“If I would have just turned around halfway, this wouldn’t have happened. Would the little girl be safe?” Godines questions.
But he couldn’t take that risk with a child in a diaper.
“I ring the bell, dog’s barking, gets there in no time flat, he got through the door, overpowers the latch and comes out at me,” he says.
His good deed going punished by the neighbor’s 5-year-old pit bull, Chevo.
”I got a puncture hole right here,” says Godines, showing his right palm.
The pit bull also chomped his left hand.
“His jaw got right here and yanked it back so there’s a big gash, big flap,” he says.
He also needed three stitches on his hip.
But Godines’ ankle and calf are the worst.
“I’m thinking he doesn’t want to let go. My God, let go,” he says.
Doctors stitched up 23 inches of lacerations.
“God. I‘ve never seen that much blood come out of anybody,” says neighbor, Aaron Nelson.
He helped put pressure on the wounds … after Godines hobbled back to his home.
“They’ll talk to the owner to see what the owner wants do. He could be released. He could be euthanized, it depends,” says Longmont Police Sgt. Bruce Wittich.
The owner is identified as Angela Murillo. Police say the family raised the pit bull from a puppy. She did not return our request for a comment.
Frank feels lucky the animal didn’t sever an artery. His son emphasizing the gravity of the attack.
“He said, ‘I could have lost my dad for doing a good deed.’ That’s about it right there,” he says with tears in his eyes.
But Frank says he did what what’s best for the child.
He’s got a special place for children like that. His owner daughter Nina is developmentally disabled.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to leave my daughter unattended,” he says. “Gosh. It’s overpowering.”
Chevo will be quarantined for 10 days at the Longmont Humane Society to make sure he doesn’t have any diseases.
Police say this is his first attack on a human. But in 2008, he attacked another dog.
[Well, the owners of this dog should be proud of their little monster. In only four short years, he's moved up from attacking dogs to humans! Good boy!]
(KWGN - May 9, 2012)
