Jun 17, 2007 6:33 pm US/Central
Woman Needs Plastic Surgery After Pit Bull Attack
Attack Made Victim Realize How Precious Life Is
CBS 2's Katie McCall contributed to this report.
JOLIET (CBS) ―
A 23-year-old woman will need plastic surgery after two pit bulls attacked her in Joliet.
Police say the woman, Stephanie Nilsen, was attacked near her home in Joliet. Sunday, Nilsen is recovering in the hospital as CBS 2's Mai Martinez reports.
Nilsen said she's lucky to be alive after two pitbulls nearly killed her Saturday evening.
"They saw the dog. I didn't see them right away, all I know is all my cousins ran, and I was about to run, but the boy dog just grabbed my fingers first," she said. "I was thinking I was going to die because the dog was actually going to my neck. He was lunging at my neck, he jumped and I blocked it with my arm and he started shaking them, and that's when the girl dog bit my other hand."
The attack happened while Nilsen was visiting her aunt Saturday evening. A neighbor's dogs ran onto the property and began biting.
"All my cousins ran, and I was about to run, but the boy dog just grabbed my fingers first and started shredding" she said. "That's when I hit him in the nose, and he just grabbed a big munch."
Her cousins who have their own pit bull, managed to get the dogs off of her.
The largest wound is on her arm above the wrist.
Nilsen says doctors couldn't even stitch up her arm completely because the pit bull pulled so much flesh off her bone.
"It was close to 96 stitches because she kept stitching and stitching and stitching and I just lost count," Nilsen said. "He ripped up all the tissue from my bone, so they couldn't be able to stitch all of it up."
The dogs belong to a next door neighbor, but he didn't want to talk to CBS 2.
Nilsen isn't surprised by his lack of response; she said he's ignored other requests by her family to restrain his dogs.
"What's it going to take?" Nilsen asked. "For that dog to kill somebody, so they can take action?"
Even though she's still in a lot of pain, Nilsen said one good thing came out of the attack, she now realizes how precious life is.
"I'm happy that I got a second chance of life," she said. "You know I got to, you know just live my life the way I want to live it now, and not take anything for granted."
Nilsen has a long road to recovery ahead of her including lots of physical therapy and possibly reconstructive surgery, but she says she doesn't blame the dogs that attacked her. She blames their owner, and that's why she's planning to press charges to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to someone else.
Joliet Police said the owner was cited by animal control, but he was permitted to keep the dogs.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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