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A grandmother who was mauled by a German shepherd is disgusted the dog’s owner ignored her pleas for help, instead using her phone to make a quick getaway and leaving the woman bleeding by the side of the road.
Yolanda Davies, 70, was walking home after playing bingo at the Belmont 16 Foot Sailing Club, in the NSW Hunter, about 4.30pm on New Year’s Eve when she was attacked by a large dog.
The German shepherd, which was on a lead, mauled at her right calf, leaving three deep gashes that required eight stitches and left Mrs Davies in Belmont Hospital instead of celebrating the new year with her family.
‘‘I was walking down Evans Street and this lady was coming the other way and suddenly her dog has just cut in front of her and grabbed my leg,’’ she said.
‘‘I felt the teeth go right in, really deep.
‘‘Then she walked past me and wouldn’t stop and I said: ‘I need help, I’m bleeding and I don’t know if it’s going to stop’.
‘‘I said: ‘I need an ambulance, I need something’.
‘‘She squatted down and dialled a number on her phone and I said ‘Who did you ring?’ and she didn’t say anything.
‘‘I pleaded with her again, I told her: ‘Look I need help, I’m bleeding and I can’t stand up. What am I going to do?’.
‘‘There was a man on the other side of the road and she said ‘He will look after you.’ Then she took off and she didn’t say sorry, she didn’t say anything, she just left.’’
Witnesses have told Mrs Davies’s family the woman may have been picked up in a silver car a short while after the attack.
‘‘Instead of using her phone to call to help me she used it to get herself out of there,’’ she said.
Mrs Davies said she was concerned about what could happen if the dog attacked a child.
‘‘This dog could do it again, he’s done it once, who says he won’t do it again?,’’ she said.
‘‘What happened to me is done but I’m worried about someone else and if it’s a child then they could get bitten on the face and be disfigured.’’
Mrs Davies’s son-in-law Craig Ehsman said he spoke to Lake Macquarie police on Tuesday and was also directed to Lake Macquarie City Council.
The family are meeting a council ranger today to make a report and discuss protocols..
‘‘She needs to do the right thing and come forward and admit what she’s done,’’ Mrs Davies said of the owner.
‘‘She needs to realise the way she behaved is not appropriate – you don’t do that, leave a fragile person like that.’’