ILLINOIS -- Elgin firefighters and paramedics felt so threatened by two dogs running loose one afternoon this week that they were forced to run into their fire station and wait for help.
“They could not leave the fire station,” Elgin Police Lt. Dan O’Shea said today.
Fire Capt. Tony Bialek said he was on the patio of Fire Station Seven on Wednesday eating lunch when he noticed a dog in the parking lot.
"So I got up and the dog seen me and went right straight for me," Bialek said. "Lucky I left the door ajar. Because all I did was open it, step in and shut it and the dog's nose was right there by my ankle, lucky I got my foot inside before the dog go ahold of it."
A second-- much larger dog also made it's way to the fire station, snarling and scratching at the door, keeping the firefighters at bay for nearly 20 minutes.
"Teeth bared, drooling all over the windows trying to get in," Bialek said.
One of the dogs was shot by a responding police officer during the Wednesday afternoon attack.
The dogs’ owners have been issued 10 tickets for violations of Elgin’s dangerous dog ordinance.
Officials did not identify the owners, who live in a home along Water Street, near Fire Station No. 7 at 3270 Long Common Parkway.
One dog, a 90-pound female pit bull that charged an Elgin police officer, was shot and wounded and taken to a clinic for medical treatment. The officer was not bitten, O’Shea said.
An owner helped corral the second dog, a 130-pound pit bull mix, and it was taken home without injury, O’Shea said.
The owners were issued five tickets for each dog, including inoculations, dogs at large and dangerous dogs at large, O’Shea said.
Officials said the incident lasted for about 15 minutes, but they would not speculate if the fire station personnel would have been prevented from responding to an emergency call.
The city adopted its dangerous animal ordinance in 2010.
“You have to look at it at a different angle,” said Mayor David Kaptain, who was a city councilman when the ordinance was adopted. “When they are big enough and aggressive enough to push grown men in great physical shape into a building because they are so scared of them, what do they do with older people and kids?”
Animal Control Officer James Rog said that since the ordinance passed, 106 tickets have been written for dangerous dogs and 19 have been written for vicious dogs.
The citations have included dogs from various breeds, Rog said.
(Chicago Tribune - June 7, 2012)
