As an animal control officer who was attacked by a dog in Fort Lauderdale recovers, her friends described her as an animal whisperer.
She was identified as Martina Bernard.
NBC6 on Sunday spoke to Bernard’s friend Primrose Thompson who said she’s awake and speaking but still has a long road to recovery.
“Tina is amazing with animals,” Thompson said. “To see this happen to her, I think we are more shocked than anything.”
Now wrapped in bandages, Bernard suffered life-threatening injuries.
“They thought she was going to die,” Thompson said.
According to Fort Lauderdale Police, on Thursday, officers received a call about a woman being attacked by a dog near Southwest 14th Terrace and Seventh Street.
Broward County Animal Care said Bernard was one of their animal control officers who was doing a welfare check on an American Staffordshire Terrier mix.
But at some point, things took a violent turn.
Gregory Campbell and his mother said they heard Bernard crying for help and then tried to get the dog off of her.
911 calls captured the chaos.
“Emergency, please. The dog is mauling her. There’s a dog mauling her,” Campbell’s mother is heard telling 911.
In the call, his mother was heard on the phone pleading for help.
“The dog is attacking animal control. Please the lady is pleading for help. Please!” she said.
Campbell said they first tried to use a shovel to get the dog off of her but that didn’t work.
He then used a knife.
“The dog saw me coming with a knife and proceeded to attack me and I attacked the dog with a knife as well,” he said. “My mother saw that the dog was going to attack me further so she threw her body weight on top of the dog and I threw my body weight on top of the other part of the dog.”
When authorities got to the scene, they removed the dog, which was later euthanized.
Following the incident, Campbell’s shirt was bloodstained.
Thompson said Bernard had bites to her scalp, ear and body, and needed nearly 1,000 stitches.
“She’s really bandaged up because she suffered serious wounds,” she said.
Broward County Animal Care is investigating the attack.
A Gofundme page has been set up to help the victim with medical costs.
If you’d like to donate, click here.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
