"I thought I was going to die," said Diltz, a Cumberland County Animal Control officer.
The only thing that saved her, she said, was the man standing outside the privacy fence of the backyard at a house in the Montebello neighborhood, off Cliffdale Road.
The man, a soldier, was the person who had called Animal Control to report that the two pit bulls were loose and roaming through the neighborhood, chasing people, Diltz said.
The man found some bricks and threw them at the dogs long enough for Diltz to crawl out of the yard.
That man, Diltz said, is the reason she is alive today.
Diltz had been working at Animal Control for seven months when the complaint about the dogs came in about 10 p.m. on May 26, the night before Memorial Day.
Diltz, 44, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, was working the night shift and answered the call.
Diltz is a slight woman with a petite build and sandy-blonde hair. When she speaks, it's with a heavy German accent.
Diltz has spent much of her life around animals and worked as an animal control officer in Arizona for a little more than a year. That was where she learned how to defend herself in the event of an attack.
Those lessons, too, saved her.
When Diltz arrived on Avila Drive, the man who had called to complain about the dogs had managed to herd the animals, each weighing about 60 pounds, into the fenced yard of a vacant house.
Before going inside the fence, Diltz did as she had been trained to do: She looked through an opening, tossed the dogs some food and saw them wagging their tails. The training had taught her that likely meant the dogs were not aggressive.
She opened the gate and stepped inside the fence. Diltz got her baton and as she opened it, it made a clicking sound.
Click, click, click.
The dogs attacked.
One bit her on the right leg. Diltz began kicking at the dogs, beating them with her baton. The other dog went after her left leg.
"They ripped more and more pieces of my legs and I went down," Diltz said. "It hurt so bad."
She reached for the only tool she had: Pepper spray.
Diltz sprayed it, and the dogs went after her throat. She drew on her training and crossed her arms over her upper body to shield her throat from the dogs' teeth.
The dogs tore the baton from her hand, nearly severing a finger. Another bite to the hand nicked a vein.
Diltz believed she was going to die. It was dark. It was late, pushing 10:30 p.m. and she didn't think anyone was close enough to hear her calls for help.
But the man who had called 911 was still outside the fence. He found some bricks and threw them at the dogs, distracting them enough for Diltz to crawl out and push the gate closed.
Seconds later, Fayetteville police, Diltz' supervisor and an ambulance arrived. Diltz' clothing was cut off as paramedics tended to her injuries.
The dogs' owner, who has not been identified, was there, too. He told Diltz and others that his dogs had never bitten anyone.
Diltz was taken to Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, where she had 47 stitches to close the wounds. She has returned to work, wearing bandages around her legs. Most of the bites on her forearms and hands are healing.
The trauma has been equally hard on Diltz, an Army veteran who was wounded whiled deployed to Afghanistan.
When she returned to the country, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and assigned to the Wounded Warrior Transition Program, where she began mental health therapy.
The attack prompted her to step up her weekly meetings with a therapist to twice each week.
Diltz returned to the scene a week after the attack. She said one of her bloodied socks was still in the yard, where it landed after being cut from her foot.
"I couldn't breathe in that yard," Diltz said.
The owner, she said, is trying to have the dogs returned to him.
She describes herself as tough and hard-core, but admits she was helpless during the attack.
"I had nothing to protect me," Diltz said.
Animal Control officers are not allowed to carry sidearms, she said. They can carry, and are trained to use, Tasers. But there aren't enough for all of the officers to have one.
Diltz, for one, believes that should be corrected.
"We're out there on our own in the middle of the night," she said. "We need help."
(Fay Observer - Jul 02, 2013)
