A man from northeastern British Columbia says he’s lucky to be alive after sustaining serious arm injuries during a vicious dog attack on Christmas Day.
Robin Elgie, 66, and his wife Wendy Lee Baker were at their Fort St. John home when two large dogs chased their cat Kenny into the house and killed it.
The dogs then turned on the couple, severely biting Baker before mauling Elgie.
“I’ve never see anything like that in my life,” Elgie told CTV News. “It was basically a fight for your life. If it had been a woman with small children they just wouldn’t have survived it.”
Elgie said he tried to step in between his wife and the violent dogs, which were jumping up and trying to get at his throat. Both of his hands were seriously injured, and he also sustained bites on his stomach, neck, and legs.
RCMP officers arrived at the couple’s trailer home shortly after the attack began.
"So at that time, you know, (the officers) tried everything that they could to distract the dogs, to draw their attention away, but they still kept attacking this man," said Cpl. Dave Tyreman.
"At that point they felt they had no other alternative but to use lethal force."
One dog was shot at the scene, but the other was injured and escaped, although it was tracked and destroyed a short time later.
Baker spent Christmas night in hospital before being released, while Elgie was airlifted to an intensive care unit in Edmonton. He remains in good spirits about the fate of his injured hands.
“As far as I know I’ll get use of them again, but they will probably never be the same,” he said. “It’s going to take quite a bit of skin grafting and stuff like that.”
When asked about the source of his optimism, Elgie chuckled.
“It’s over with,” he said. “I don’t think I would have lasted too much longer if [the police] hadn’t had got there. They responded quite fast.”
Family friend Kim Babcock said doctors are waiting to see if blood flow can be restored to Elgie's damaged limbs.
"His one arm is really quite bad - his left one - and he knows he could lose it," said Babcock.
"He's not angry. He just says: 'We're so lucky, we're so lucky.
If (Wendy) Lee had been by herself, they could have killed her. He's just, he's an amazing person."
Babcock said she launched a GoFundMe campaign, initially to cover the expected costs of helping Baker join Elgie in Edmonton and also to clean and repair the damaged home.
"They cleaned up the trailer and the outside of the house. They had it all steamed because it was, it was terrible. It was a mess," she said.
The online fundraiser was posted Wednesday and had surpassed its $10,000 goal by early Thursday, although Babcock said the campaign will continue.
Neither RCMP nor Elgie, who is a dog owner himself, have any idea what prompted the vicious attack that “happened so fast.” Officers are still working to trace the dogs to their owners.
“I can’t understand a person wanting pets like that, but it’s not really fair to judge them either,” Elgie said. “You would think if they do have them they should be looking out for them.”
With files from The Canadian Press
