A pregnant woman suffered gruesome facial injuries in a savage attack by her neighbor’s two pit bulls last month — but feels lucky they did not kill her or her unborn twins.
Audrey Austin broke a finger as she instinctively covered her stomach to protect her babies when the dogs lunged at her in the dark outside her home in Topeka, Kan. on July 17, while she was 24 weeks pregnant.
She almost lost an eye and her nose — and needed at least 14 hours of surgeries “to put her face back together,” her partner said.
Austin blames the dogs’ owner, her now-charged neighbor Tina Buck — and told WIBW she feels lucky the attack was not fatal while also recalling her panic for her unborn babies during the vicious mauling.
“I didn’t know where the blood was coming from. I didn’t know it was coming from my face. I thought it was coming from my stomach, so I was blocking my stomach the best that I can,” she recalled.
“[Buck] almost cost three lives that night … not just mine but my twins.”
The mom-to-be was ultimately saved by a friend who bravely tackled the dogs, one of whom was then shot dead by a responding cop.
“If it wasn’t for the gentleman — our friend who stepped in — he said the dogs would have killed her,” her partner, CJ Austin, previously told WBIW.
The expectant mother made clear that she does not blame the animals.
“There are dogs out there that are sweet and innocent. It’s the owners and how you raise them,” she said.
Buck was issued a municipal citation for dangerous dogs and was booked on Thursday on charges of interfering with law enforcement and having dogs running at large, WCTV reported.
She has since posted bond and is expected back in court in September.
Austin said her babies remain in good health and she is expected to deliver in November, after returning to her apartment complex following an extended spell of treatment.
“No dog is going to keep me from coming home,” she said.
Her partner said she will still “be scarred for the rest of her life.”
“She has nightmares of that dog attacking her. She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘Get him off me. Get him off me.’ That’s traumatizing her,” he said.
A GoFundMe set up to cover Austin’s medical expenses and support her while she is unable to work had almost reached its $9,000 target as of Tuesday morning.
Some 800,000 dog bite victims require professional treatment annually, and of the 30-50 fatal attacks involving dog bites per year, almost two-thirds involve pit bulls, according to figures from DogsBite.org.
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