First they bit her 17-year-old granddaughter, who scrambled onto a kitchen counter to escape.
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| Virginia Farley, who lost one arm and almost had her other arm severed in an attack by her five pit bulls, talks about the incident, Thursday, August 11, 2016. She has had months of skin grafts, recovery and rehabilitation. Photo: Joe Burbank |
Farley got him away from the dogs, and the two of them holed up in a back room.
The dogs went silent, and she thought they had calmed down. So she opened the door.
"The largest dog grabbed this arm," she said, pointing to her left arm, now an amputated stump.
Farley, 50, spoke publicly for the first time last week about the pit bull attack on Jan. 19 that nearly cost her her life.
She returned to Central Florida two weeks ago after six months in Jacksonville and Chicago for specialized medical care.
Farley is living temporarily in Pine Hills with her daughter, grandchildren and 29-year-old son, who has Down syndrome.
"I've got one arm and a good mind. He's got two good arms," she said. "We're going to make it what we can."
SIX PIT BULLS, THREE CHILDREN AND THREE ADULTS INSIDE A THIRD-FLOOR, TWO-BEDROOM APARTMENT - AN APARTMENT COMPLEX WHICH BANNED PIT BULLS
The four pit bulls that attacked her belonged to her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, Farley said. They were having money problems and had just been forced from a Winter Springs apartment, according to court records.
They moved the dogs in the day before the attack.
"We considered them like pets," she said.
They joined pit bulls that she owned, a pair of 2-year-old females that she had raised, she said.
She's not sure how long the attack went on. Three emergency dispatch calls from the apartment clocked in at more than eight minutes.
After the biggest male pit bull clamped down on her left arm and wouldn't let go, "another three grabbed my right arm," Farley said.
She did not fight back, she said, because if she had, it would only have made the dogs more aggressive.
"They continued to pull, bite, pull, bite," she said.
On her belly are scars from where the dogs braced their legs when they pulled.
At one point, she said, she looked down at her left forearm.
"This was all white bone," she said.
She was rescued by Sanford police Sgt. Nigel Price, who shot and killed the four attackers plus another dog after one charged him.
Tears come into Farley's eyes as she retells that part of the story.
"But I was so relieved, so relieved," she says. "I hurt so much."
She passed out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, she said, and did not regain consciousness for a week, after doctors amputated her left arm above the elbow and reconstructed her right arm, which is deeply scarred.
By then, police had closed the case. There was no crime, and no one had died.
Police reported that five people were injured. Farley says it was only three: her, her 17-year-old granddaughter, and her son, Richard Farley.
Their injuries were less serious.
There were other grandchildren at the apartment, she says, but they were outside, out of harm's way.
VIRGINIA FARLEY HAS LONG HISTORY OF ANIMAL CONTROL COMPLAINTS ABOUT HER PIT BULLS - AND WASN'T SUPPOSED TO EVEN HAVE THEM INSIDE HER APARTMENT
A week and a half before the attack, Virginia Farley posted a photo on Facebook of her blue-nose pit bull at the office of a veterinarian in Altamonte Springs. The dog is on a leash and appeared to be calm and healthy.
She did not identify the animal by name, and it's not clear if it was one that would later attack her.
Former neighbors complained to county employees about her dogs several times over the past eight years, according to public records.
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| Per the apartment complex rules, Virginia Farley was not allowed to have ANY PIT BULLS at her apartment |
In 2008, a 70-year-old Sanford woman who lived up the street complained that Farley's pit bull had bitten her.
Farley told county employees she didn't have a dog, a claim the neighbor disputed. County employees checked back several times but never found a dog, records show.
At other times, neighbors made other complaints about Farley and her dogs, records show, accusing her of neglecting her pit bulls, leaving them without shelter or food or water; keeping one tethered to a tree, where it charged at and frightened passersby; allowing them to bark for days on end.
None of the dogs was trained to fight, she insists, and she does not know what set them off.
"I couldn't imagine them doing this," she said.
She was the victim, she said, of five pit bulls (including her own) that suddenly turned into a pack.
The oldest male in the group, a 42-pound male named Boss, is the one that started the attack by clamping down on her left arm, she said.
"The other three followed [including her own pit bull]. They operated as a pack, as if they had one mind, as if they were one."
Her advice to dog owners: "Humans should not allow multiple pit bulls out together."
No federal agency currently keeps statistics on dog bites, said Cory Smith of the Humane Society of the United States, so it's impossible to say if pit bulls are responsible for most.
But a specific category of dog bites – fatal attacks on humans – are studied, she said.
In a typical year there are 30 to 35 of those, and according to the National Canine Research Council, there's no reliable evidence linking pit bulls or any other breed to a disproportionate number of them.
More than 20 breeds had been linked to fatal human attacks, Smith said.
A much better predictor than breed, she said, are environmental factors.
The dogs that killed people often acted in packs, often had not been spayed or neutered and often lived outdoors and had limited human contact, Smith said.
VIRGINIA FARLEY WANTS DONATIONS
Farley's right arm and hand are so weak she cannot carry a gallon of milk.
She hopes one day to get an artificial left arm – "a bionic arm" she says with a laugh -- but for now that's not possible. The tissue has not yet healed.
She jokes that it could be worse. She had planned to get butterfly tattoos the length of her left arm. Had she spent the $200 for the tattoos and then been attacked, "I'd have been pissed," she said.
But she is frustrated by her limitations: She cannot drive, cannot zip up a jacket, cannot open a can, cannot button her clothes.
"I want everything I had before," she says. "It's pretty sad to be like this, to be honest with you."
On Thursday she set up a Go Fund Me account, and she talks about creating a nonprofit organization specifically for people who have lost arms and hands to amputation. She used to work, taking incoming phone calls for customers needing help with tax returns, but she can no longer do that. She can't operate a computer.
"I want to get my life back and be as independent as possible," she said.
The fifth dog, Lily, was in a cage in a back room while Farley was under attack. It was impounded by Seminole County Animal Services. Three months ago someone who had been told about its history adopted it, said Bob Hunter, animal services director.
(Orlando Sentinel - Aug 13, 2016)
Earlier:
You have exactly until 10am Monday, August 15, 2016 to rewind your half truth blog about me and my history. If your going to rely on other stories, you have an obligation to ensure your story (not your source) is correct. Until tomorrow morning blogger or I will sue you ass. Real story!!!
ReplyDeleteIf this really is you, I'm sorry for the life-changing medical issues you're suffering, but all of the above was garnered from legitimate news sources, including the Orlando Sentinel, Fox35 and News9. You may want to begin your legal journey by threatening them. Should they post retractions to what you say are false statements, please update your comments here - with the links to their retractions - and I will certainly amend this post and align it with their updated, corrected comments. God be with you.
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