Cranbourne North woman taken to hospital after near-fatal dog attack in her own backyard
A CRANBOURNE North woman needed 60 stitches, surgery and is lucky to be alive after she was severely mauled by two vicious dogs in her own backyard. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
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A CRANBOURNE North woman needed 60 stitches, surgery and is lucky to be alive after she was severely mauled by two vicious dogs in her own backyard.
Ashley Harraghy, 20, said the dogs were so powerful she couldn’t fight them off, and could only lie on the ground as one of them bit her repeatedly, centimetres from her neck.
“The dogs were attacking me — I was trying to stop it but in the end I couldn’t so I ended up just lying there,” she said.
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One of the dogs, which she believed was a staffy-ridgeback cross, ate a chunk of her arm, and she suffered more than 30 bites from head to toe.
Her fiance Phil Juggins, 20, heard her screams and sprinted to save her, kicking the dog away as it repeatedly tried to attack.
“I could have walked out to (find) my girlfriend dead because you can see how close it got to her neck,” he said.
“If it did get her neck I probably wouldn’t have been able to save her life.”
They said the dogs entered the backyard under the back fence of their Rachel Drive property, and were friendly at first, but within a few minutes they circled Ms Harraghy before biting her, pulling her hair out, ripped her clothes and one latched onto her arm, pulled her down and tugged her along the ground.
“It was scary, I was in shock,” she said.
She’s been forced to have almost a month off work to recover from her injuries, and is having trauma counselling.
The couple have called on Casey Council to destroy the dogs.
“I wouldn’t want it to happen to anyone else,” Ms Harraghy said.
Mr Juggins said his fiance had a heart of gold and was an animal lover who didn’t like to see them hurt, but he wanted the dogs dead.
The attack occurred about 2.15pm on June 17 with paramedics arriving within minutes to rush Ms Harraghy to Dandenong Hospital.
She had surgery on her right arm with doctors using 60 stitches to repair wounds all over her body.
She was released from hospital last Wednesday but is undergoing counselling as she continues to be haunted by flashbacks of the terrifying encounter.
“She’s petrified of our own dogs now, she can’t be in the same room as them, she can’t even look out at the backyard without crying, it just flashes in her head,” Mr Juggins said.
“I have to coach her to try and sleep at night because it keeps replaying.”
Casey Council confirmed it had seized the vicious pair, one on the day of the attack, the other last Friday.
Safer communities manager Caroline Bell said officers are investigating.
“Both dogs are still being held by the council and the status of their registration and microchipping will be determined as part of the investigation,” she said.
Casey Council has received 215 requests to respond to and investigate dog attacks in the current financial year compared to 226 last year.
There are 23,701 registered dogs within the city.
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