A woman has described “screaming” in pain after she was attacked by a dog that grabbed onto her arm and shook her “like a rag doll” in west London.
The 74-year-old victim told Sky News she feared the dog had torn her hand from her arm.
The woman was driving through Northolt when her car collided with another vehicle and both parties stopped and got out to inspect any damage.
A large dog then “came out of nowhere” and jumped up at her, putting its paws on each of her shoulders, she said.
The woman, who asked not to be named, told Sky News: “I must have instinctively pushed it away, and next thing I know I’m on the ground being shaken like a doll and screaming for my life.
“The dog grabbed my right arm and I was on the ground and I was being shaken like a rag doll screaming ‘somebody please help me,’ screaming at the top of my voice.”
The incident comes amid concerns about dog attacks after Natasha Johnston was mauled to death in Caterham, Surrey, and a four-year-old girl was killed in a back garden in Milton Keynes
Footage of the attack in Northolt on 26 January was shared online and showed what looked like a pit bull clinging to the woman’s arm as two men battled to release her.
The woman said the two men were from the other car and were “kicking the dog and fighting the dog and doing their utmost to get it off me”.
“At one point the older man had both the dog’s ears and the dog was staring at me in the face and growling and I just kept screaming,” she said.
The woman said eventually the dog let go of her arm and she escaped to the passenger seat of her car.
‘I felt like I was looking at minced meat’
The woman added: “All I remember seeing when I jumped in my car was flesh everywhere. And my arm was sort of hanging. There was flesh on my coat, there was flesh on my lap, flesh in my car.
“When I looked at my arm, I felt like I was looking at minced meat. Obviously that was where the dog had been chewing it, biting it and gnawing it.
“I didn’t feel pain at the time, but I was screaming in pain afterwards. I just visualised my hand being left on the ground. The way he was pulling me, I didn’t think my hand would be left on my arm.”
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The emergency services arrived and the woman was taken to hospital.
“It was the most awful time of my life,” she said. “I kept thinking I might never see my kids again. It’s just awful.”
The attack broke both bones in the woman’s forearm. She has undergone three operations so far and said she will have to go through several more.
Officers working to locate dog owner
The Metropolitan Police said officers were called at 10.54pm on 26 January after the woman was attacked by the dog.
A force spokesperson said: “Two vehicles had been in a collision. As those involved were exchanging details one woman was approached and attacked by a dog, causing injury to her arm.
“The other people began trying to help her. The dog did not belong to them.
“Another member of the public, seeing the incident, stopped her car and opened the door. The dog got in and she took it to a petrol garage off Yeading Lane, where it bit her arm.
“Police arrived and took control of the dog. It was taken to a police station where efforts to locate the owner are ongoing.
“The two women’s injuries are not life-threatening.”
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Other dog attacks
The 74-year-old woman said on the day she was attacked she had been discussing the news of 28-year-old Natasha Johnston who was killed by dogs in Surrey.
“It’s awful,” she said. “I think dogs shouldn’t be allowed to roam the streets without muzzles. Especially dogs that size, because they are huge.”
Earlier this week four-year-old Alice Stones was killed in a dog attack in a back garden in Milton Keynes.
