He ran outside to find his neighbor, Angela Fassnacht, 55, being mauled by her 60-pound dog.
“If we hadn’t been home having lunch, I don’t think anyone would have heard her,” Dreher said later. “I said, ‘Katherine, it’s raining. It’s probably kids playing.’ It kept getting louder and louder. Some lady started screaming, ‘Help me! Help me! Help me!’ ”
Because of Dreher’s efforts, Fassnacht got away from Alvin, an American Bulldog and boxer mix. But not before suffering numerous bit injuries.
She was transported to Salina Regional Health Center, then to Wichita's Via Christi Hospital on St. Francis, where she was in critical condition with multiple wounds from the attack.
“God bless you guys for being, at the right moment, good neighbors,” Fassnacht's husband, Antone Galdmez, said later to Dreher and Bower.
“You are a hero,” he told Dreher, who had to tear through a fence to distract the dog, which had been on top of Fassnacht, who was on the ground in the backyard of her home at 501 W. Iron. Dreher and Bower live south of Fassnacht and Galdmez.
* * * * * *
Dreher said he looked over a 6-foot privacy fence and saw the dog was on top of Fassnacht.
“I ran out here and the dog was attacking her, but I couldn’t get over the fence,” Dreher said. “I wish I could have gotten in faster.”
Bower called police and Dreher started pulling the fence apart, which briefly distracted the dog.
“He jump back on her. I yelled, ‘Get back, boy.’ That dog was going to kill that woman,” Dreher said.
“He jumped on her again. I grabbed a board. I didn’t hit the dog,” Dreher said.
Once inside the backyard, he was able to slap the board to distract the dog again.
“It scared him and she opened the door just in time. As soon as she opened the door that dog hit that door,” Dreher said. “He was going to kill her. One hundred percent he was going to kill her. He attacked her three times. He was going for her face.”
Bower assisted Fassnacht before emergency medical services workers arrived.
“She was pretty tore up,” Bower said.
“It wasn’t the dog’s fault. It wasn’t my wife’s fault,” Galdmez said.
“He got spooked somehow,” Dreher said.
* * * * * *
Vanessa Cowie, the Salina Animal Shelter animal services manager, said several events led up to the attack.
“It was a complicated situation,” she said.
She said criminal charges probably won't be filed in connection with the attack.
“Statistically dogs that are unaltered (like Alvin) are more likely to be involved in a bite,” she said. “I do think that dog bites are complicated. I never recommend having multiple dogs in one household that are not spayed or neutered.”
Alvin was taken Monday to the Salina Animal Shelter.
Galdmez said he and his wife had owned Alvin for only about seven weeks, and [insist on believing that] the dog "probably" had been abused.
He said they purchased Alvin online because he looked like a dog they had owned that had died.
“We found a dog that looked exactly like Clark,” he said. “We noticed right away when we got him that he had been abused. I told him, ‘Alvin, we are going to show you some love.’ ”
(Salina.com - July 31, 2017)
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