A New Zealand mother-of-six is recovering in hospital after she suffered serious injuries, including losing a piece of her skull, when three pit bulls attacked her as she walked her own dog.
Trudy Lee, 35, was only about 100m from her house at Manurewa in South Auckland when she spotted the pack of stray dogs bounding up the street, but said she assumed they were running at her dog and not her.
‘My dog managed to get out of her collar because they were ready to attack her and she ran home,’ Ms Lee told the NZ Herald from her hospital bed.
But rather than chase her pet, she said the three dogs knocked her to the ground and then one latched onto her arm, another on her leg and the third onto the top of her head.
‘They tore tendons out of my arm… They were pretty much trying to rip me apart.’
Ms Lee said she screamed, which caught the attention of neighbours who rushed to her aid as the dogs ran off.
She said the bystanders called an ambulance and tried to help her stop the bleeding while an ambulance arrived.
She said felt like it took ‘ages’ because of the extent of her injuries and the pain she was in.
‘I was just trying to survive… I thought I was going to die on that footpath. I was looking up at my daughter because my kids were in front of me. They were in shock, they’ve never seen their mum like that.’
Mum-of-six Tracy Lee has part of her skull ripped off by a pack of three pit bulls
She is recovering in hospital after multiple surgeries
Auckland Council said it had located the dogs and put them down (stock image)
She was given a blood transfusion in the back of the ambulance and rushed to nearby Middlemore Hospital.
Once there doctors did multiple surgeries, including skin grafts and an operation to plug the hole in her skull, and she is set for more before she is discharged.
Ms Lee said for the first few nights in hospital before she was scared to sleep because she was worried she might not wake up.
While she is ‘still in shock’, she said it could have been worse as there were primary school aged children from two nearby schools who were also walking on the street.
On top of that, she also could have easily had her own two young daughters, aged 8 and 9, with her as they sometimes tag along when she walks the family dog.
A Givealittle page has been setup to help cover Ms Lee’s hospital bills.
Auckland council said they had located the three dogs who have since been euthanised.
The incident is one of an alarming number of dog attacks in Auckland in recent years.
There was a 10 per cent increase in the number of dog attacks from 2022 to 2023.
Pit bulls are prohibited from being imported into New Zealand but they are already in the country.
They are required to be muzzled when on the street by law but the three dogs who set upon Ms Lee were strays.
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