Delaware: "[Beating him with a golf club] only made him madder.... He was going crazy. That dog was very aggressive."

DELAWARE -- Police shot and killed a dog – described as a pit bull – in Wilmington about 5 p.m. Monday after it attacked a woman and child, authorities said.

The woman, believed to be in her 30s, was taken to Christiana Hospital in serious condition with dog bites to one upper arm, New Castle County Paramedic Cpl. Abigail E. Haas said. No information was available about the child.

Police were called at 4:53 p.m. to 10th and Bennett streets after reports of "a loose pit bull actively attacking people," said Sgt. Andrea Janvier, spokeswoman for the Wilmington Police Department.

Aaron Reddick, 27, of Van Buren Street, said he was driving by and pulled over when he saw the dog "lock on the woman's arm and start shaking her."

A man was hitting the dog's body with a golf club, he said, "but that only made him madder.... He was going crazy. That dog was very aggressive."

Reddick said he did exactly what he saw in a YouTube video about how to get a dog to stop attacking somebody:

"I pushed everybody out of the way and took off my belt, wrapped it under the dog's throat and lifted up hard to cut off his air supply." The video said that would cause "a gag reflex, like they're going to throw up," he said.

"It really did work," he said. The dog let go of the woman's arm and other people went to help her, he said.

Reddick stayed with the dog and told another man to get a towel and twist it, run it under the dog's neck and pull up to help keep pressure on its throat, he said. They also used the shaft of the golf club across the top of the dog's head, pressing down, he said.

At one point, Reddick said, the dog "tried to bite my forearm so I lifted him up from under the neck and slammed him to the ground and put my knee on his back."

Although he focused mostly on the dog, Reddick said, he did see the victim's arm.

"It was mangled," he said. "There was a lot of blood."

When city police arrived, they intervened with those holding down the dog and –fearing for their safety as that of other people in the area – shot and killed the dog, Janvier said.

The dog is believed to have been a pit bull or pit bull mix, said Kevin Usilton, executive director of The First State Animal Center and SPCA, which handles dog control statewide.

The agency has no information about the dog's owner or veterinary records, Usilton said.

The dog's remains – collected at the scene by animal control officers – are to be turned over to the state Division of Public Health for testing to determine whether the dog had rabies, he said.

The attack comes nine days after a pit bull was shot and killed by Newark police after the dog attacked 8-year-old Emily Ruckle at her home in the city.

She is at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors reattached her right arm. Rescuers credited her sister Megan, 15, saved for saving Emily's life by calling 911 and applying pressure to her arm to keep her from bleeding to death, her family said.

In May, 4-year-old Kasii Haith was killed by pit bulls at the home of a family friend west of Felton.

Last year, 686 dog bite cases were reported in New Castle County, 325 in Sussex County and 260 in Kent County, according to Delaware Animal Care and Control statistics.

(The News Journal - Oct 7, 2014)