Neighbors try to help man being attacked by pit bulls in Lake Worth

FLORIDA -- The first thing David Fitch saw after hearing a blood-curdling scream from outside his Lake Worth home were two pit bulls on top of a man in a driveway across the street, his arm and neck trapped in their teeth.

The second thing he saw was the blood.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue spokesman Albert Borroto said just before 9 a.m. Thursday, two pit bulls attacked an unidentified man in the driveway of a vacant house in the 6000 block of Lawrence Woods Court.

After hearing the man's cries for help, Fitch and another neighbor jumped into action, grabbing weapons to fight off the dogs, then making a tourniquet out of shirts to slow the blood pouring out of the man's mangled right arm.

"It was unbelievable how the dog had him by the neck," said Fitch, who along with another neighbor tried to fight off the dogs. "It was like they were lions to a gazelle."

Fitch said his neighbor saw the man pull up in his white Lexus and park in front of the house, which sits in a cul-de-sac. They didn't think anything of it — they'd seen the man before at the foreclosure checking out the property — and went about their business.

But two pit bulls bounded out from the property next door. The bigger one latched onto the man's arm, Fitch said, while the smaller dog went for his neck.

Fitch and his neighbor quickly grabbed weapons. Fitch said he practices martial arts recreationally, and has a set of solid-oak nunchucks — two short clubs attached by a short chain — hanging in his garage. He jumped into his truck, whipped it out of the driveway to the center of the cul-de-sac and threw the nunchucks toward the bigger dog's head.

"It didn't even faze it," Fitch said. "It didn't even turn to look at me, like 'Who the hell did this?'"

Fitch then grabbed a box cutter from the truck and jumped out, hoping to distract the dogs toward him. His neighbor grabbed a shovel and pulled his car out too, ready to try and hit the dogs with the spade while still being able to jump on the hood if they charged him.

"It was unbelievable," Fitch said. "I started screaming [at the dogs]. I actually lost my voice I was screaming so loud."

The dog's owner came out of the house and called out to the dogs. They relented for a moment, Fitch said, walking toward the owner's home next door to the vacant house. But they came back and grabbed the man again, this time by his stomach.

"The owner had to grab the dogs by the neck to get them off," Fitch said.

Animal control said the owner of the pit bulls is Antonio Maldonado, who declined to comment to a reporter.

In the window of the house, the family has a "Beware of Dog" sign. Maldonado handed the dogs, Diego and Nina, over to Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control, which euthanized them, Capt. Dave Walesky said.

(Sun-Sentinel - June 13, 2014)