Carter was walking to her son's house three years ago after his wife had called her asking that she check their home.
"She called, worried that she may have left the stove on, so I went to check it out," explained Carter.
As they had done many times before, Leah, Helen, Ruby and Max, her son's four pit bulls, greeted her in the dirt road that separates her home from her son's property.
"The girls wanted their chests' rubbed," remembered Carter of the moments before they all turned on her.
She says she noticed that Max, the male dog, was not as friendly as the others.
"I think that's where I made my mistake. [I] made eye contact with him because when I did, he just went crazy," said Carter.
The other dogs then joined in, grabbing at Carter's arms and legs.
"Max went after my throat," she said.
Never Any Trouble with the dogs
"They were never, never aggressive towards any of us," explained Carter.
The four pit bulls were dogs her son had decided to raise when his dog got pregnant.
"She had 12 puppies," remembered Carter.
She says her son was very careful not to let just anyone adopt them.
"He didn't want them to go to a family that would fight them. He wanted them to go to a loving home," she described.
Her son became attached to the four and he kept them.
Begging to see her husband
Karin Carter lives in Clay Hill, a rural part of the Clay County near the border with Duval County. It's a rural area with dirt roads and lots of open space.
When the dogs attacked, she found herself fighting for her life. With each scream, the dogs' attacks would intensify. Max was the aggressor.
"I knew if I didn't do something that I would just lay there and bleed to death," recalled Carter.
Carter screamed and screamed until her brother-in-law and nephew heard her and came running. One was armed with a shotgun, which he fired to scare the dogs away.
She thought she was dying.
"I remember pleading -- I don't know if I said it out loud or not -- for Louie because in my mind I had to see him one more time," said Carter.
Louie is her husband of 47 years. They met as teenagers.
"I blacked out and then I heard him calling me, 'Honey, honey,' and then I looked up and I was at peace now that I saw him. I asked him, 'Can I go to sleep now? Can I please go to sleep?' And he said, 'No, you will stay with me, you will stay with me,'" recalled Carter.
She says when she arrived at a hospital, the doctors told her husband and son that she might not survive the night.
"I should not have survived. I bled out. I should not be here," said Carter.
Trade her leg for her life
Carter said she fought to live. Her arms were covered with puncture holes and tears from where the dogs had bitten her. A chunk of her left leg near her shin was missing. Her right leg below the knee was exposed down to the bone. The flesh was missing.
"I remember looking up at one point and two of them were fighting over a piece of my flesh, and I was just relieved that they weren't on me," Carter said.
Doctors told her she would die if they did not amputate her right leg from below the knee.
"That foot hurt so bad, the one that was gone. It was horrible. They kept telling me, 'Are you sure it's not this foot?' I said, 'No.' It was so bad that I wouldn't talk anymore because it hurt so bad I would scream," recounted Carter, referring to the pain in her right leg after part of it was amputated.
Carter left with post-traumatic stress disorder
"What happened after the attack was more crippling than losing the leg," said Carter.
She was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She would see shadows of dogs in corners of the room, she was terrified of the dark and she was afraid to leave her own home.
"I was humiliated by the way my mind was," explained Carter. "Everyone was telling me I was so strong and I was embarrassed that I was so afraid."
'The war that raged within'
Carter started seeing a mental health counselor who encouraged her to write. The former school teacher took the advice. It helped her tremendously.
She hopes her story will be an inspiration to others, especially soldiers. She wrote her story in a book titled "The War That Raged Within" that details her battle with PTSD.
"Bad things happen to everybody. Bad things happen all the time, especially to soldiers, but you can come back home, you can find your way. You can find a way to deal with it, but you have to have the courage to fight, and it's an every day fight," said Carter.
Karin Carter's book is available at local Barnes and Noble stores and on Amazon.com.
(WJXT Jacksonville - Nov 6, 2014)
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