Elderly woman recovering after vicious pit bull attack
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SEATTLE -- Between the noise of the medical machines, the presence of a breathing tube, and the nurses attending to her, it can be tough to understand Gloria Boswell.
What isn't tough to understand: The 82-year old's will to fight - especially in this case.
"If you want to survive, you're going to have to fight," she said, "and I wasn't about to give up my home and my life."
The great-great-grandmother survived an attack by two pit bulls on Monday night, said Chief Criminal Deputy Dave Pimentel with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff Department. Boswell was at her Satsop home, alone, around 7:30 p.m., Pimentel said, when the two dogs mauled her face, arms, and legs. She wasn't discovered until her grandson, the pit bulls' owner, came home with his wife a short time later.
"I had a pit bull wrapped around my neck," Boswell said of the attack. "That dog (came) off up the floor, and to the couch, and around my neck."
"She had some horrific wounds, tendons pulled out," said Pimintel, who added that in his three decades in law enforcement, he'd never seen anything like it.
Boswell is now in stable condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where doctors have bandaged her arms and legs.
"(It's been) very tough," said her daughter, April Dean, with tears welling in her eyes. "I just felt sorry that I wasn't there to help her, because I close my eyes and I can just hear her screaming for help, and nobody's there to help her. She's my life."
Boswell isn't sure what set the dogs off. She says she reached for a pillow on the couch, and went to pick it up, and the next thing she knew, the two dogs had lunged at her.
Boswell's grandson, Edwin Groce, and his wife came home to find Boswell on the floor after the attack. While paramedics were attending to Boswell, Groce shot one of the dogs.
"There've been no prior instances of this at all," Groce said. "It's like, Sissy, she would just jump up on your lap and lick your face, until we got the other puppy."
"Everybody gives a pit bull a bad name. It just depends on how they're raised," he said. "I think I raised them properly."
The second dog is under a mandatory 10-day quarantine, Pimentel said, and will likely have to be put down. No charges have been filed, but the investigation is ongoing, he added.
"I never knew they would turn like that," Dean said. "(Other people should know) just to beware. That they can do this to somebody."
"They chewed holes in her arms, clean to the bone, and her legs," Dean added. "If she hadn't have been a strong person, she wouldn't have been here."
What isn't tough to understand: The 82-year old's will to fight - especially in this case.
"If you want to survive, you're going to have to fight," she said, "and I wasn't about to give up my home and my life."
The great-great-grandmother survived an attack by two pit bulls on Monday night, said Chief Criminal Deputy Dave Pimentel with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff Department. Boswell was at her Satsop home, alone, around 7:30 p.m., Pimentel said, when the two dogs mauled her face, arms, and legs. She wasn't discovered until her grandson, the pit bulls' owner, came home with his wife a short time later.
"I had a pit bull wrapped around my neck," Boswell said of the attack. "That dog (came) off up the floor, and to the couch, and around my neck."
"She had some horrific wounds, tendons pulled out," said Pimintel, who added that in his three decades in law enforcement, he'd never seen anything like it.
Boswell is now in stable condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where doctors have bandaged her arms and legs.
"(It's been) very tough," said her daughter, April Dean, with tears welling in her eyes. "I just felt sorry that I wasn't there to help her, because I close my eyes and I can just hear her screaming for help, and nobody's there to help her. She's my life."
Boswell isn't sure what set the dogs off. She says she reached for a pillow on the couch, and went to pick it up, and the next thing she knew, the two dogs had lunged at her.
Boswell's grandson, Edwin Groce, and his wife came home to find Boswell on the floor after the attack. While paramedics were attending to Boswell, Groce shot one of the dogs.
"There've been no prior instances of this at all," Groce said. "It's like, Sissy, she would just jump up on your lap and lick your face, until we got the other puppy."
"Everybody gives a pit bull a bad name. It just depends on how they're raised," he said. "I think I raised them properly."
The second dog is under a mandatory 10-day quarantine, Pimentel said, and will likely have to be put down. No charges have been filed, but the investigation is ongoing, he added.
"I never knew they would turn like that," Dean said. "(Other people should know) just to beware. That they can do this to somebody."
"They chewed holes in her arms, clean to the bone, and her legs," Dean added. "If she hadn't have been a strong person, she wouldn't have been here."
