The sight of a 58-year-old woman being mauled by two dogs and dragged up and down a suburban Harvey street was a terrifying one.
After the April attack left her requiring seven excruciating surgeries to amputate the majority of her foot, Donna Hale says her life will never be the same.
On the evening of April 14, Hale was attacked as she was making her way home from a friend’s residence.
On that fatal night, she felt something touch her near the intersection of 145th Street and Sangamon.
“I turned around and saw two dogs,” she stated. “I fell backwards, and that’s when they attacked me. One grabbed my leg, one grabbed my shoulder, and they just started mauling me.”
Despite weighing 125 pounds, Hale claims that the strong canines managed to pull her up and down the street for at least fifteen minutes while no one paid attention to her cries for assistance.
“They were pulling me from both ends,” she stated. “All I could think is ‘I’m getting mauled by these dogs. Is this really happening?’”
Eventually, two cars arrived at the site, she claimed.
She claimed, “He saw me, saw them mauling me and he flashed his lights and blew his horn, but they never stopped.”
One of the witnesses shot one of the dogs at that precise moment after drawing a gun.
“I heard ‘arf,’ and they both ran away,'” she continued.
Another motorist requested assistance by dialing 911.
“I held my head up and was like ‘please don’t leave.’ She said ‘baby, I’m not going to leave you. I’m calling the ambulance,’” Hale stated. “I’m glad I never lost consciousness.”
One of the dogs was wearing a collar, but Hale claimed she had never seen them before. The dogs were rottweilers, according to the police report, and one of them weighed at least 80 pounds.
The doctors had to deliver the dreadful news to her when she was taken to the hospital.
“The doctor is like ‘I’m going to need your permission to amputate your foot,’ and I said yes,” she stated.
Hale ultimately spent over a month in several hospitals, and this week she had her sixth surgery.
Read Also: Jacksonville Animal Care Under Fire for Leaving Bulldogs in 90-Degree Heat
“All the bites and the road rash, it was awful,” she stated.
She claimed that overcoming her injuries wasn’t the only challenge she faced. She claimed that she felt like she was being held responsible for the attack when investigators finally arrived to speak with her.
“They tried to make it seem like I did something wrong, or was a reason for what had happened,” she stated.
“I marched to the mayor’s office after the detective started to victim blame,” her sister Cheryl Hunt continued. “He said ‘Harvey’s a dangerous place….why is your sister walking down the streets of Harvey?’”
A representative for Harvey said in a statement that they are going over how the issue was handled and that they are “aware of the allegations regarding the nature of the questions asked during the investigation.”
Read Also: Texas Bill Would Let School Boards, Parents Remove Books from Public School Libraries
Officers arrived soon after the attack, according to the Cook County Department of Animal and Rabies Control. The dog that had been shot during the event was found and sent to a clinic for rabies testing and euthanasia.
A search did not turn up the second dog.
Two police will be trained in ARC policies as part of the response to the attack, which will put more of a priority on tackling animal control issues in Harvey. The suburban neighborhood will not be charged for this training.
Hale stated that she is currently dealing with a new reality and will keep going with her recuperation.
“I have lost all of my toes. “They won’t grow back,” she declared. “I need to adjust to a new normal.”
