GEORGIA -- Driving on Rogers Avenue, William Carroll spotted a woman being attacked by a pit bull.
Jenna Myrick had been walking Peaches, her 10-month-old golden retriever, about a mile away from her home on Old Holton Road in Macon about 6 p.m. Tuesday.
When Myrick and Peaches reached the intersection of Rogers Avenue and Kingsley Drive, a group of dogs ran out of a yard and a pit bull latched onto Peaches’ neck, starting a struggle that ended in 26-year-old Carroll shooting the pit bull to protect Myrick and her puppy.
Before Carroll arrived, 23-year-old Myrick had been fighting with the pit bull, pulling it and striking it, trying to get the dog to release its grip on Peaches. The other dogs in the pack weren’t aggressive, she said.
“I started screaming at the top of my lungs,” Myrick said.
At some point, she succeeded in getting the pit bull to stop attacking Peaches, but it meant her wrestling with the dog on the ground. She held the dog’s collar, trying to keep it from turning its attention back to Peaches, but she couldn’t hold on, she said.
Carroll, who had been on the way to his Kingsley Drive home, said he and his brother tried to stop the dog from attacking Myrick and Peaches by hand, but he ended up going to his car to get his gun.
“It was what had to happen,” he said. “A human life was in jeopardy.”
Myrick told police that Carroll saved her life, according to a Macon police report filed after the incident.
Carroll said he did what anyone else would do.
Myrick and Peaches are recovering from their injuries. Myrick’s hand and finger were hurt. Peaches had neck, jaw and leg injuries, Myrick said.
The pit bull didn’t die immediately, but was euthanized. It was tested for rabies, she said.
Myrick said in the future she’ll carry pepper spray in case she falls victim to another dog attack while strolling with Peaches.
“It was one of the worst things I have ever experienced,” she said. “It was traumatizing.”
(Macon Telegraph - Nov 2, 2012)
