A mum-of-one has revealed she was mauled by a dog when she was a 17-year-old, only for her friend’s stepdad to threaten that he would set the dog on her for a second attack if she rang the police.
Crystal Bates spent nine days in hospital and had to have two surgeries after the vicious incident in 2018 left her with holes in her leg and nerve damage.
The Northamptonshire mum, who’s now 22, had just arrived at her friend’s house when the English Bulldog savagely bit her leg as she went to close the door.
She told the Mirror: “Everyone just froze and was screaming. I don’t think anyone knew what to do.”
Reflecting on the brutal dog bite, 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.”
The young mum said her friend’s stepdad turned “nasty” following the horrific episode and told her she could not phone the police or an ambulance and that she had to leave the house immediately.
She said: “Having just been attacked by that dog, that’s very traumatising”.
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Ms Bates said her friend’s stepdad made her sit in the shed, before yelling: “If you ring the police or an ambulance I will let this dog outside and it’ll get you again.”
Ms Bates said she wanted to get home to see her mum and asked her friend to open the back gate so she could limp to her house.
But her friend didn’t let her, saying: “I am ringing the police. You need help.”
Ms Bates said the adrenaline of the ghastly incident masked the initial pain, but that as she went outside it hit her like a sledgehammer.
She rolled up her leggings and noticed that the “flesh was just there and bleeding a lot”.
Speaking on the phone to the ambulance handler, Ms Bates was told that if the inside of her leg is exposed to the elements it “just dies” and cannot be brought back. So her friend and mum wrapped her leg in a “dirty jumper they found outside” until the police turned up.
Such was the extent of the injury, Ms Bates needed two surgeries and had to rebuild the muscle.
Her friend’s stepdad remained bitter after the ordeal even when Ms Bates had come out of hospital, smashing her own father’s car a week following the incident.
The brutal bite left her with scars all over the damaged area, something she was very self-conscious about.
Despite her hang-ups about the scars, she said that after a couple of years she came to terms with them. She said that they’re “part of who I am, I can’t really hide it.”
However the “mental scars” have not healed, in face she said they’re worsening with time.
She claimed that when she takes her child for a walk, she often needs someone to go with her, such is her fear of a repeat attack.
Six months after the attack, the dog was put down, but Ms Bates said she was “fighting and fighting” for the canine to be re-trained.
Ms Bates no longer likes to be around dogs, especially since having her four-month-old son, and is campaigning for dog owners to require a licence.
