Pit Bulls Attack Walker
James Dunlop was about halfway through his regular three-mile morning walk on New Year’s Day in East Hampton when he was attacked by two roaming pit bulls. Police had to use a Taser on one of them.
From his hospital bed Tuesday, Mr. Dunlop said the dogs didn’t make a sound until they were about three feet away. “They were growling and trying to get me,” he said. Well acquainted with animals, he knew he shouldn’t try to outrun them, but as he tried to disengage them, he fell to the cold ground and the 70-to-80-pound dogs began biting his hands.
“I was screaming, ‘Help! Help! Help!’ ” while he fought the dogs off. Luckily, he said, there was someone home at a house on Todd Drive to hear his cries and dial 911 at about 7:55 a.m.
East Hampton Town Police Officer Luke McNamara arrived within about two minutes to find Mr. Dunlop being attacked by the two pit bulls on the side of the road. Mr. Dunlop “had a grip on the blue-nose pit bull’s collar at the neck,” the officer wrote in his report, referring to the female dog, named Marley. “The red-nose pit bull, a male dog named Max, was aggressively biting and pulling at Dunlop’s foot and leg.”
“There was a moment when I thought I wouldn’t get home,” Mr. Dunlop said, adding that an elderly person or a child likely would have been killed.
Officer McNamara distracted the dogs away from Mr. Dunlop with his lights and siren. When he tried to get out of the car, one pit bull ran toward him. He deployed his Taser, stunning the dog. Both dogs appeared to be submissive at that point. As backup arrived, Officer McNamara opened a back door of his squad car, to where those under arrest usually sit, and both dogs jumped in voluntarily, he said in his report.
He was then able to turn his attention to Mr. Dunlop, who had severe lacerations, mainly to his hands. Four of the punctures went straight through Mr. Dunlop’s hand. The East Hampton Village Ambulance Association transported him to Southampton Hospital. He has since had two surgeries on his hands and will have at least one more before he leaves the hospital, he said.
Mr. Dunlop, a retired town fire marshal, estimated that the time from the beginning of the attack to when the officer began treating him totaled about 15 minutes. He credits the police officer and the man who called 911, whose name he does not know, with saving his life. “I’m not sure how much longer I could have lasted,” he said.
Meanwhile, East Hampton Animal Control seized and impounded the dogs, owned by Christian Ortega of Deer Lane in East Hampton. He could not be reached for comment. Animal control is filing dangerous-dog complaints with East Hampton Town Justice Court. “However, the dog owner has expressed a willingness to have the dogs euthanized voluntarily,” Betsy Bambrick, the head of the town’s Code Enforcement Department, said on Tuesday.
The Suffolk County Department of Health Services requires a 10-day holding period after a bite when a dog’s vaccination cannot be verified, in order to ensure there is no rabies infection. “In this case, the license and vaccination for one dog is expired,” Ms. Bambrick said. The dogs are being kept at the Veterinary Clinic of East Hampton.
Ms. Bambrick said the dogs have no history of biting, but the department has a file on them. Marley was impounded for running loose on Dec. 17, and two tickets were issued to the owner for failure to confine a female in heat and failure to identify the dog with a license tag, though the license is current until Jan. 31.
On Nov. 18, 2013, animal control received a complaint about Max running loose and that he had “displayed aggression by ‘biting tape measure out of complainant’s hand.’ In that case, the complainant declined to pursue charges,” Ms. Bambrick said.
Animal control had not received complaints that the dogs were loose when they attacked Mr. Dunlop.