As he ran outside shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday, he saw the pit bull dogs attacking Margaret McNicholas, the 69-year-old woman who owns the Houston Road house in south Bibb.
The 34-year-old grabbed a broom on the way out to face the same two dogs who threatened him when he went out for a morning smoke at 4 a.m.
“The look that she had in her eyes as I was running towards her, I’ll never forget that,” Bryant said. “It was like she was ready to give up.”
The dogs, one orange and black and the other solid black, were tearing her up.
There were deep cuts in her face and arm, her wrist was broken and she was bleeding from serious wounds to her legs, thighs and feet, according to the incident report from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.
“There was so much blood,” Bryant said. “I’ve never seen a dog do that much damage.”
As he started swinging the broom, the dogs dropped back 5 or 6 feet and kept watching him before eventually running into the woods behind the house, which backs up to the Skyview Mobile Home Park.
He took McNicholas to the side of the house for safety.
“I’m about to pass out,” she told him as he phoned for help.
“I called 911 three or four times, telling them to hurry up, there was so much blood,” Bryant said Friday morning after visiting his landlady.
She had surgery to repair the break in her wrist and the wounds have been stitched up.
“She’s doing well, just in a lot of pain,” he said.
McNicholas is still recovering at The Medical Center of Central Georgia.
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| A Bibb deputy shot and killed two pit bulls that escaped from this pen near Lot 13 at Skyview Mobile Home Park and attacked a woman who lives on Houston Road behind the property. |
Bibb sheriff’s Deputy Lee Mock arrived at the golden brick ranch house as the EMTs were stabilizing her for the ambulance ride.
Her yellow kerchief and turquoise-blue hair rollers were strewn on the front lawn, as were a pair of white socks.
Mock heard the large dogs barking and jumping on the back fence as Bryant was showing him where they ran.
The deputy went for his shotgun, Bryant said in his witness statement.
The black dog scaled an 8 to 10 feet fence with ease and started charging at the deputy, Mock wrote in the report.
“I was in great fear for my life, at which time I shot at the dog,” Mock said in his report.
The dog ran off back into the trailer park, leaving bloody paw prints on the road and a driveway.
Fearing others were in jeopardy, Mock drove his patrol car around to near Lot-13, where the dogs stayed in a small pen that backs up to McNicholas’ property.
On Thursday, boards were stacked on top and along the bottom edges of the fence and appeared to block prior escape routes.
Mock tracked the black dog and shot him again, but he kept coming at him.
“I shot the dog again ‘til it stopped moving,” he said in the report.
The deputy continued to search for the second brindle-coated dog.
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| A pair of socks lies near a blood-stained kerchief and hair rollers where a woman was attacked by two pit pulls Thursday afternoon on Houston Road in Bibb County. (Macon.com) |
“I was advised by another deputy that dog was running towards me, coming up from my back,” he wrote in the report. “As I turned to face to the dog, the dog was charging me at which time I fired on the dog.”
The second dog also got up and Mock shot until the dog was dead.
Bryant said he was impressed by the officer.
“The deputy who came up, oh my God, he was outstanding,” Bryant said on the phone Friday.
At the hospital, McNicholas told him how the dogs came out of nowhere as she walked back from the mailbox.
She had just noticed a freshly killed opossum in the yard and wondered who she could call to remove it.
As the first dog came at her, she thought about jumping on her car, but decided to get inside the vehicle in case the dog could jump up after her.
Before she could get to the door, the other dog came at her from the other side of the car.
The dogs knocked her down as she ran toward the house. They were all over her as she cried out for help.
The dogs’ owner, Amber Tripp, and her husband were due back that night from Florida.
They live on Lot-13, where the dogs were shot and killed.
Bibb Animal Welfare Officer Bruce Rozier removed the carcasses for testing.
District Attorney David Cooke said Friday afternoon that he has talked with investigators about possible criminal charges in the case.
“Based on the conversations we’ve had so far, it’s still under investigation,” he said. “We’ll have a better idea on Monday.”
Bryant wonders who was feeding the dogs or caring for them in the Tripps’ absence. He said this is not the first time he’s had problems with dogs.
One time, two dogs tried to keep him from getting in his front door.
Three others were roaming around Friday morning as he left for the hospital.
He never goes outside without a large stick.
While McNicholas was in trouble, he never thought of his own safety.
“It never entered my mind they could turn on me.”
(Macon Telegraph (blog) - May 31, 2013)
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