SAGINAW, MI — A Saginaw mother spent a March morning enjoying fresh air, working in her yard and taking a walk with her two sons. She didn’t think much of it when her elder son pointed out a dog coming their way.
“I looked over my shoulder and saw this 100-pound-plus dog charging at us with a clothesline attached to its collar,” said the mother, 37-year-old Ashley M. Piwarski.
Piwarski grabbed her sons and hoisted them onto her shoulders but was unable to shield them from the ensuing attack. By the time it was over, she and her children were bleeding from numerous punctures.
Despite the attack’s severity, Saginaw County Animal Care & Control officers did not respond to the scene and the dog’s owner received no citations, much to Piwarski’s dismay.
Piwarski and her sons survived the mauling, but the dog was unvaccinated, requiring them to endure a series of painful rabies shots. Piwarski has also been left with a sizable medical bill.
“I’m at my wit’s end with the entire thing,” Piwarski said.
The attack
The attack occurred about 10:45 a.m. on March 11 in the 1800 block of Marquette Street. After Piwarski lifted her sons, ages 8 and 10, the charging Rottweiler-pit bull mix leapt up and grabbed her younger son’s hat from his head, biting his scalp in the process.
The boy started screaming as the dog circled, Piwarski said. The dog bit the older boy on his elbow and three times in his lower back, tearing him from his mother’s arms.
“He was shaking him around like a rag doll,” Piwarski said. She kicked the dog twice in its snout as it continued circling “like a shark,” she said.
Time slowed for Piwarski during the attack.
“It was seconds but it felt so much longer,” she said.
The next thing she knew, a woman ran out of a neighboring house, asking what she should do. The dog latched onto Piwarski’s thigh as she yelled for the other woman to call 911. The other woman ran up to the dog and pulled it away by its collar, taking it into the house she had emerged from.
A Saginaw police officer and Mobile Medical Response personnel responded to the scene. Piwarski and her sons were taken to a nearby hospital via ambulance.
The woman who corralled the dog would not let police into the house. The officer later spoke with the dog’s male owner over the phone, who claimed his dog, named Bingo, was up to date on his vaccines, according to reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The police officer advised Saginaw County Central Dispatch to inform Animal Control of the incident, his report states. He also told the dog’s owner Animal Control staff would visit his house.
Bingo’s owner called Animal Control that afternoon regarding the biting incident. An AC officer told him they wouldn’t be able to visit his house. The officer instructed him to put Bingo on a 10-day quarantine inside his house.
The owner also said he did not think Bingo’s rabies vaccination was current, reports states.
The day after being bitten, Piwarski called AC Director Rachel Horton, who informed her Bingo was under home quarantine and there was no room for him at the shelter. Horton also told her Bingo was not licensed or vaccinated, Piwarski said.
“I felt like I was being insulted how she spoke to me,” Piwarski said. “I felt like I was being pushed to the side, like I was making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Piwarski sent the emergency room report on her and her sons’ wounds to AC.
“I waited to see if anything would come of it and nothing happened,” she said.
Piwarski on March 19 spoke with an AC officer and sent her photos of her and her sons’ wounds. The officer texted back that Bingo should have been picked up the day of the attack.
The officer also informed Piwarski that Bingo’s owner had voluntarily signed over his dog to be euthanized. Bingo’s carcass would then be tested for rabies.
“I explained that with an attack this severe I would of [sic] tried to file dangerous dog but with the owner making the decision to euthanize the dog, that closes the case on our part,” the officer wrote in her report.
Horton could not immediately be reached for comment.
The dog’s owner was not issued a citation for having an unlicensed or unvaccinated dog, nor did he face charges for having a dangerous animal.
Piwarski and her sons, both of whom are on the autism spectrum, underwent rabies shots. Piwarski received 12 in her leg, her older son received 10 in his side, and her younger son received six in his scalp.
“They were the most painful shots I’ve experienced in my life,” she said. They also had to take heavy antibiotics for 10 days.
Laboratory testing confirmed Bingo did not have rabies, reports show.
Though Bingo has been put down, Piwarski is upset over the lack of consequences for his owner.
“I just want these people to be held accountable,” she said. “Your pet bit somebody and attacked us in the middle of the road. Six inches lower, my youngest son would have been bitten on his neck and it would have been a completely different story. Things could have been a lot worse.”
She said her sons are healing but are leery of going outside. They’re OK with their family’s dogs yet remain apprehensive around others’.
The family’s medical bills from the incident have amassed to nearly $60,000. While insurance is covering some of that, Piwarski is left to pay the remainder out of pocket, she said. She has retained an attorney to look into pursuing civil litigation, but nothing has been filed so far.
An officer mauled
Piwarski and her sons weren’t the only people to suffer a vicious dog attack in Saginaw in recent months. In October, an AC officer was herself mauled by an unvaccinated pit bull, a confrontation resolved by gunfire.
The officer on the afternoon of Oct. 27 responded to the 1200 block of North Third Street in reference to a stray pit bull running loose and having bitten a child. She exited her department truck and walked toward the dog, which charged her and bit her right hand and ankle, reports state. The officer shoved the dog, only for it to bite her left hand and latch onto her chest, reports state.
The officer used her body to pin the dog against her truck while trying to free her wrist from its mouth. She asked a nearby man to hit the dog and he did so, causing the canine to release its grip.
The injured officer pulled herself onto her truck’s roof and called Central Dispatch. The dog continued circling and jumping at the officer, reports state.
A Saginaw police officer soon arrived. The dog charged him, prompting the officer to draw his gun and shoot it three or four times, killing the animal.
The police officer drove the injured AC officer to a nearby hospital after a tourniquet was wrapped around her arm. Police placed the dog’s carcass in the AC truck. Lab testing showed the dog did not have rabies.
The injured AC officer has since returned to active duty.
Want more Bay City- and Saginaw-area news? Bookmark the local Bay City and Saginaw news page or sign up for the free “3@3″ daily newsletter for Bay City and Saginaw.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
