Horrifying picture shows wounds suffered by girl, 17, who had chunks torn from her leg in dog attack – before its owner threatened to let the beast loose again if she reported it to police
- WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Crytal Bates was attacked by the dog in 2018
A mother-of-one has revealed she was attacked by a dog when she was 17, only for her friend’s stepfather, the owner, to yell that he would let the animal loose on her again if she rang the police.
Crystal Bates was hospitalised for nine days and underwent two surgeries after the savage attack in 2018 left her with holes in her leg and nerve damage.
The now-22-year-old, from Northamptonshire, had just arrived at her friend’s house when the family’s English Bulldog sunk its teeth into her leg as she turned to shut the front door.
‘Everyone just froze and was screaming,’ she told The Mirror. ‘I don’t think anyone knew what to do.’
And directly following the attack, Ms Bates said her friend’s stepfather made her sit in the shed, before shouting: ‘If you ring the police or an ambulance I will let this dog outside and it’ll get you again.’
Ms Bates now struggles to be around dogs, especially since having her four-month-old son, and is campaigning for dog owners to require a license.
Crystal Bates, from Northamptonshire, had just arrived at her friend’s house when the family’s English Bulldog sunk its teeth into her leg as she turned to shut the front door
After arriving at her friend’s in June 2018, the dog lunged at her leg.
Ms Bates said: ‘There was no way he was getting off. He did lock his jaw. But luckily, in the end, I think my friend’s mum had to put her hand into the dog’s mouth and pry the jaw open.’
Her friend’s stepfather turned ‘nasty’ and said she could not phone the police or an ambulance and that she had to leave the house.
‘Having just been attacked by that dog, that’s very traumatising,’ she said.
Ms Bates said that she just wanted to get home to see her mother so asked her friend to open the back gate so she could walk back to her house.
But her friend replied: ‘I am ringing the police. You need help.’
Ms Bates said she was not immediately aware of the damage done to her leg as the adrenaline masked the pain and her leggings barely had a hole in them.
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But she started to feel a bit of pain when she went outside and on rolling up her trousers saw that ‘flesh was just there and bleeding a lot’.
On the phone to an ambulance call handler, Ms Bates was told that the longer exposed flesh was met by air, it ‘just dies’ and can’t be brought back. Her friend and her mother then covered Ms Bates’s leg in a ‘dirty jumper they found outside’ until the police arrived.
Following two surgeries on her leg, Ms Bates spent several weeks on crutched and had to rebuild the muscle.
But the attack left her leg covered in scars.
As she was a teenager at the time, she said body image was important and she felt self-conscious so wanted them gone. After a couple of years, she said she learned the scars are ‘part of who I am, I can’t really hide it.’
However, the ‘mental scars’ from the attack have stayed with her, and are getting worse as she gets older.
She was hospitalised for nine days and underwent two surgeries after the savage attack in 2018 left her with holes in her leg and nerve damage
Ms Bates is now wary around all dogs and says she will never get her own. If she takes her baby son for a walk, she said she often needs somebody to accompany her.
The dog was taken away from the family and put down around six months later. Ms Bates said her friend’s stepfather continued to lash out when she came out of hospital, smashing her father’s car just a week later.
Ms Bates did not want the dog to be put down as she believes it was ‘the owner’s fault, not the dog’.
‘I had built love for that dog myself,’ she said. ‘I kept fighting and fighting for them to give it rehab and training and then re-home it.’
But she was told that the dog could attack again and a woman alter revealed her toddler was bit on the lip by the animal but she had not reported it.
Ms Bates is now calling for a licenese to be introduced for owners, to guarantee they meet a certain standard.
Dog licenses wewre compulsory under the Dog Licenses Act 1959 but the requirement was widely ignored. The requirement was abolised in England, Wales and Scotland by the Local Government Act 1988.
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