DURBAN - A 67-year-old woman is in a stable condition in hospital after she was attacked by her family’s Rottweiler Thursday morning.
She was walking with the 4-year-old dog, along with two others - a Jack Russell and a Border collie - when it turned on her on a sports field in Salt Rock.
Unconfirmed reports said the Rottweiler and one of the smaller dogs were fighting, and the Rottweiler turned on the woman when she tried to separate them.
It bit her on her arm, thigh (damaging a vital artery), chest and back.
Paul Herbst, of IPSS Medical Rescue, said two people living next to the park heard the woman’s screams for help.
The Rottweiler behaved aggressively towards the men who rushed to assist.
Shot
According to one media report, the dog was still circling the woman when the men arrived. One man shot the dog when it moved towards them, to prevent another attack.
“The woman suffered severe bite wounds. She was in a critical condition,” Herbst said.
She was taken to the eThekwini Heart Hospital for surgery.
This was the second mauling by a Rottweiler in Durban this year. Three-year-old Ezlin Hannah Naidoo was mauled to death at her grandmother’s Mayville home and her 6-year-old brother sustained injuries to his head and face when they were attacked by the family’s two dogs in January.
And in Inchanga, a woman died when she was mauled by a pack of dogs while on her way to work in February.