Elderly pit bull attack victim recalls ordeal

CALIFORNIA -- Bruna Secco says she likes to take a two-mile walk every afternoon “to keep myself healthy and strong.”

The 76-year-old San Jacinto resident's afternoon walk on Tuesday, March 5, nearly cost her life.

Secco was attacked by a pit bull while walking along Commonwealth Avenue just a block from the end of her journey. The dog clamped onto the back of her right leg. Then the dog switched to her left leg, her right side and both of her arms.

Bruna Secco inspects wounds she suffered when a
pit bull attacked her Tuesday, March 5, in San Jacinto.

“I was petrified,” she said. “The more I tried to get him off, the more he was chewing me in other places. He rolled me around and bit me all over.”

The 130-pound woman tried to push the dog away with her hands.

“I was running out of strength to fight,” she said. “I thought this was it for me. I couldn't fight him any more, so he was going to eat me up.”

Secco said a teenage boy she thought had been walking two dogs, including the pit bull, without leashes “panicked and left.”

A man driving by stopped his car, “looked at me and drove off,” she said. A woman came by, stopped and called 911.

A witness said 10 to 15 people gathered around, but only three people helped rescue the woman.

Jose Reyes holds the baseball bat he used to help rescue a 76-year-old
San Jacinto woman attacked by a pit bull Wednesday, March 5.

Two of them, the director of a Christian rehabilitation home across the street and a resident of that home, grabbed a baseball bat and a golf club and used them to fend off the animal until authorities arrived.

“I owe him for saving my life,” Secco said of Jose Reyes, the home director who heard the screaming, grabbed the aluminum bat and brought help. “I am going to go see this man as soon as I am able to and thank him for what he did.”

Secco's son, Ed, exchanged hugs with Reyes on Friday afternoon in a brief meeting at the home. Reyes told him residents had been praying for the woman, but did not know her name.

Bruna Secco, who has lived in the Blue Fountain mobile home park since November, was released from the hospital Thursday night.

She has broken ribs, torn tendons and bandages around both arms and on her legs. She said doctors have told her she will need physical therapy. She has difficulty sitting because of her leg wounds.

“I'm doing decent, considering,” she said.

The pit bull is in quarantine at the Ramona Humane Society shelter in San Jacinto.

A Riverside County Sheriff's Department spokesman said no charges are being sought against the owner of the dog.

(Press-Enterprise - March 8, 2013)

Earlier:

• Woman, 76, rescued from pit bull attack