“You have to tape it to your arm, and they slip off at night. It's really uncomfortable,” Alkhatib said as her husband gingerly but expertly rewrapped her arms in the kitchen of their home Thursday.
About two weeks ago, Alkhatib was bitten by a loose pit bull that's still at large.
"I don't know what I did to make him want to bite me,” she said.
Alkhatib was driving on Broadway near a shuttered Walmart store in Vallejo when she pulled over to close her hood, which had popped open. And that's when it happened. A pit bull came, seemingly out of nowhere and clamped its powerful viselike jaws onto her arm.
“I remember him grabbing a hold of my arm, and I fell back on my back and I was just thinking, 'Oh my god, I can't believe I'm being attacked by a pit bull.’"
She looked right into the dog’s gray eyes and had an idea.
“I was trying to jab him in the eyes when all of a sudden, I heard someone, you know, cussing and yelling."
A man pulled the dog away, saving her life. He disappeared after the attack as did the dog.
It’s not known if he owned the dog or was just a passerby.
Alkhatib says what she knows for sure is that she was viciously attacked by a gray, 100-pound pit bull with white around its mouth.
"And it was huge,” she said. “I remember looking down its back and just seeing really tight skin."
Despite serious wounds to her arms, she drove herself to the hospital. She's had four surgeries and will still need skin grafts. But even so, she says she has no ill will against pit bulls.
"I don't hate pit bulls. And I've gotten a lot of slack for that. There’s some pretty mean people who believe that I should hate them, and I just don't. I love animals."
It has nothing to do with "hating" Pit Bulls or "being mean". It's about recognizing these dogs for being inherently dangerous. What if it were a child that had been attacked? How many serious attacks and deaths have been caused by these dogs?
It has nothing to do with being an animal lover. I could argue that I love animals more than she does because I want to put a stop to these death machines that are daily ripping apart other people's beloved pets.
Authorities believe the pit bull may belong to a homeless person who lives in an encampment nearby.
Solano County animal control officers have been visiting homeless camps in the area in hopes of finding the dog involved.
Alkhatib says the owner needs to follow the rules like everyone else so that no one else, including children, are hurt.
"You should be licensed and have training to own this dog,” she said.
If the dog is found, it could be quarantined and, if deemed a danger to the public, be put down, authorities said.
KTVU NEWS CLIP:
(KTVU - February 1, 2018)
Earlier:
- California: "My mom was attacked by a pit bull in Vallejo on Friday"
- California: Woman has her arm torn apart by a Pit Bull but insists, "It seems like whenever someone gets hurt by a pit bull, it's the breed that is blamed". She must have hit her head during the attack because she's clearly brain damaged.
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