Husband says dog owner ‘left her bleeding on the sidewalk. That’s unconscionable in this town.’
Editor’s note: For privacy concerns, the Sentinel is withholding the name of the victim of the dog attack.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – An 82-year-old Ocean City woman was attacked by a dog early Saturday morning on Wesley Avenue. The dog bit her on both arms and knocked her down. She required seven stitches to her head because she fell against a parked car.
The owner of the dog asked if the woman was OK as she lay bleeding on the sidewalk, then scooped up the animal and hustled off.
She said she left her house about 6:15 a.m. Saturday and was walking on Wesley Avenue around 25th Street. “A man was approaching me with dog. It was kind of dark, but I could see them,” she said. “I kind of stepped aside and all of a sudden the dog attacked me. It grabbed my left arm … and then I kind of got away and I was trying to get away and the dog rushed me and grabbed my right arm with such force that I fell and” hit a car parked in a driveway. “My head hit the car and I was on the ground. I said to the man, ‘Get your dog off me! He’s biting me!’ And I’m bleeding and I’m laying on the ground. He said, ‘Are you OK?’ And then he picked up his dog and he dashed away.”
The woman said she had blood all over her sweatshirt from hitting her head but she got up and tried to follow the man. She saw him cross over to 25th Street and then Central Avenue and go into an alley between Central and Asbury avenues, she believes. “By the time I got to the alley he had disappeared,” she said.
“I don’t know who he was. He was a very tall man. That’s all I can say, maybe on the younger side. Because it was dark I could not identify him,” she said.
She and her husband reported the incident to the police and then he took her to the hospital.
“I had seven stitches in my head, plus they had to do a CT scan because it is right by my eye to be sure my eye socket and cheek and everything was intact, which it was,” she added.
She said she has bruises on both arms and the skin is abraded on her left arm, but fortunately she was wearing two sweatshirts and jeans so the dog’s teeth did not cut her.
“The force of the jaws is what damaged my arms,” she said.
She told police the dog was on a leash, but later thought it must not have been because the owner didn’t use one to pull the dog away from her. “He didn’t restrain it in any way at all,” she explained.
“We don’t want this to happen to anybody else,” she said. She added she is in good shape and regularly walks, but if the attack happened to someone who was frail or to a child, things could have turned out worse.
“It was so scary,” she said. “The fact that he left me laying on the ground, I didn’t have a chance to ask him if the dog had had its shots. At that point I didn’t know if it penetrated my sweatshirt. We thought people should know that.”
The woman said it was hard to tell the size of the dog in the dark, but that it appeared to be heavy because of the way the man was carrying it as he briskly moved away from the scene.
“I could see the dog in his arms as I was trying to chase him down,” she said, “but he had a head start.”
“The problem,” the husband said, “is we don’t know what kind of a chance we have to get this guy. My wife is in really good shape. She’s 82, but that dog could kill somebody.”
The owner, he added, “left her bleeding on the sidewalk. That’s unconscionable in this town.
“I imagine he ran to his car, jumped in it with his dog and got the hell out of there.
“He ducked into the alley and she’s chasing him and then he went between houses,” he said. “And she’s bleeding like crazy so she had to give up. Then I had to take her to the hospital. I took her to the police station first.”
“We’ve been around Ocean City for 50 or 60 years,” he said. “She’s got a big shiner and bruises all over her.”
In addition to contacting the police, the husband said they decided to call the local newspaper in case someone happens to know of a big dog in the area. “You’re doing the community a favor if they can find this guy,” he said.
“It also should make people more mindful to keep their dogs on a leash,” his wife added.
The police were going to call an ambulance, but she wanted her husband to take her to the hospital in case someone more in need required the ambulance.
Police investigate
The Ocean City Police Department report, filed by Patrolman Eric Puga, contains a narrative of the incident as the woman described it to the Sentinel.
The report said after Puga and Patrolman Madison interviewed the victim, they went to the scene “and found multiple blood spots on the sidewalk in front of 2429 Wesley Ave.” They also found cameras on the homes that pointed toward the scene, but the homeowners were not present and they would try again later.
In response to questions, Police Chief Jay Prettyman said he didn’t know if the dog’s owner would face charges.
“We would have to identify and interview the dog’s owner and determine the circumstances before we could speculate about what charges would be appropriate,” Prettyman said via email. “It would have been extremely helpful if the victim would have called the police immediately (9-1-1). Then we would have had a much better chance of identifying the dog and its owner and gathering the pertinent information. Whenever someone delays reporting anything to the police department, we are at a severe disadvantage.”
The chief said typically when the police are called for service, they immediately dispatch an officer to respond “and upon arrival make an assessment to determine the facts of the situation. If needed, we will include the Animal Control Officers from the Humane Society of Ocean City and/or our Humane Law Enforcement Officer (HLEO) who is responsible for investigating animal-cruelty complaints.
“As indicated in the police report, we are seeking surveillance video,” Prettyman said.
If people have information about the incident, they can call the Ocean City Police Department at (609) 399-9111.
Dogs, the chief noted, “are required to be leashed at all times.”