A woman has lost all four of her limbs after being mauled by a pit bull in an horrific attack. Janelle Scott was on a bike ride with her boyfriend in Oklahoma in early September when she was viciously attacked by the dog.
The dog knocked Scott off of her bike before tearing into her arms and legs as her boyfriend rushed to her aid. The dog then turned on the man, who killed it in self-defence, according to Fox23. Police confirmed the presence of a second pitbull but said that there was no evidence of its involvement in the attack.
The dog’s owner was in jail at the time of the attack and the pets were being looked after by a friend of Scott’s, according to the Okmulgee Police Department.
Scott’s mother, Cheryl told Fox23: “Where the friend lives, you have to go through a wooded area to get up there. I guess he lives in a camper or something.
“So she was going up that way when the dogs came out and attacked her, and she knew the dogs and they knew her.”
Scott was found with “significant and severe injuries,” before being rushed to hospital where she remains.
On arrival, her right arm was described as “barely hanging on by tendons,” with doctors initially hoping that the woman would only lose one limb.
However injuries to her left arm and both legs were so severe that she was forced to have them amputated too, with her family worried that they “might have to have more of her left leg amputated” soon, according to an update on the family’s GoFundMe.
Cheryl added: “Every day that she has to go into surgery, it’s been hard. I was wondering, ‘How much more can they do?’ When she lost all of her limbs, I thought, ‘OK, well now her body’s going to be able to heal and she’s going to be able to get through this.
“I know that she can do it because we’re strong women, so I’m pretty sure that she’ll come through this, and I told her she has a purpose. I said, ‘Our creator wouldn’t do this, so there has to be a plan we just have to find out what it is.”
A GoFundMe to help raise money to cover Scott’s significant medical bills has raised nearly $19,000.
