He was on his knees, bitten, bloodied and circled by dogs when passersby stopped to help
A man was attacked and seriously injured by two dogs in Tacoma Feb. 2, leaving him partially scalped, according to police and a man who helped stop the attack.
The victim, a man in his 70s, was walking along Pacific Avenue near South 60th Street at 11:30 a.m. when he was attacked, according to Tacoma police spokeswoman Wendy Haddow. The area is lined with single family homes.
Dave Wick was driving northbound on Pacific Avenue when he saw the attack.
“It looked like he was on his knees,” Wick said Friday. “He had two dogs circling him.”
At first, Wick thought the man might be playing with the dogs but quickly realized he was witnessing an attack.
Wick parked his truck in the middle of Pacific Avenue, grabbed a gun and ran to the man’s location between the sidewalk and street.
“He stopped chewing on him and he looked up at me,” Wick said of one of the dogs. Before Wick could use his gun, somebody from across Pacific Avenue called the dogs and they ran off.
The condition the victim was left in was horrifying, Wick said. A large piece of the victim’s scalp had been separated from his skull. He had bites.
“He was exhausted,” Wick said of the victim. “He put up a fight. He didn’t talk much.”
Blood was everywhere.
“You could see where the struggle was,” Wick said.
Other passersby pulled over and helped. Tacoma firefighters transported the victim to a local hospital. As of Friday, he was still hospitalized, Haddow said. He sustained a fracture in the attack, among other injuries, she said.
The dogs’ owner was visiting his father in the area at the time of the incident, Haddow said. The dogs escaped from a fenced yard.
The dogs’ owner quickly put the animals in his vehicle after the attack, Wick said.
“He backed his vehicle all the way out so we couldn’t see his license plate,” Wick said.
Animal Control knows who the owner of the dogs is, Haddow said, but he appears to have left the area with his animals. He is being sought by law enforcement authorities, she said.
The dogs’ owner potentially faces felony charges, Haddow said. The investigation is ongoing, she said.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 5:31 PM.
