Last year, Responsible Citizens for Public Safety (RC4PS) held the first-ever event on National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day at the Michigan state Capitol building in Lansing. The year's national awareness day is on October 26. Ann Marie Rogers, the founder of RC4PS, interviews Mia Johnson of National Pit Bull Victim Awareness and Colleen Lynn of DogsBite.org followed by a round table discussion in a pre-taped Zoom conference that is about 46 minutes long.
Johnson discusses National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day that was first established in 2015, the related organization, and why it was started. Rogers and Lynn discuss legislative issues, such as the National Defense Authorization Act, which our nonprofit wrote about earlier in October. The round table discussion covers a number of areas, including how the act of the CDC defining a "mauling injury" (32:10), instead of using the "dog bite" vernacular would "change everything."
Mauling Event Protocol
In 2019, a study examining 182 patients at Charleston Area Medical Center in West Virginia became the first study to define "mauling injuries," and used the term "mauling event" as well. "Mauling injuries were recorded when 3 or more bites occurred over 2 or more distinct regional anatomic areas, typically the craniofacial region, back, torso, and extremities." Among the top-biting breeds, pit bulls inflicted the most complex wounds (63%) and mauling injuries (71%).
Selected Findings: "The data showed that compared with other dog breeds, pit bull terriers inflicted more complex wounds, were often unprovoked, and went off property to attack ... The probability of a bite resulting in a complex wound was 4.4 times higher for pit bulls compared with the other top-biting breeds ... and the odds of an off-property attack by a pit bull was 2.7 times greater than that for all other breeds." - Dog-Bite Injuries to the Craniofacial Region: An Epidemiologic and Pattern-of-Injury Review at a Level 1 Trauma Center, March 2020 [2019 Nov 14, Epub]
"Mauling" vernacular was also used in the 2011 Texas study, "Mortality, Mauling, and Maiming by Vicious Dogs." That study concluded, "Attacks by pit bulls are associated with higher morbidity rates, higher hospital charges, and a higher risk of death than are attacks by other breeds of dogs." This vernacular describes the severe nature of the injuries, which is an important distinction for doctors treating these injuries and for those who respond to the scene of a severe dog attack.
First responders have emergency codes for what they are responding to. Today, police and fire respond to a "dog bite" or "animal bite" even if there are multiple victims and mauling injuries. Recall the "Judith incident" where a pit bull killed its owner (Devin White) and attacked three other family members. Four ambulances were required and a life-flight was in motion, but was later called off. They were not responding to a "dog bite." They were responding to a "mauling event."
From animal control departments, who fill out a "dog bite" report after a biting incident, to the hospital intake form listing "dog bite" after taking in Daxton (this 14-month old boy underwent a sustained pit bull mauling lasting up to 15 minutes), to numerous medical studies examining "dog bite" injuries, all the way up to the CDC, which obfuscates "dog bites" with mauling and maiming injuries and deaths, there is a daunting vernacular problem that can and should be rectified.
We stated in our 2014 Remedy document to the CDC that they "must make a vernacular distinction between mauling and maiming injuries and deaths (2%) by dogs and garden variety dog bites (93%). Call them what they are: 'mauling and maiming injuries.'" Doctors, coroners, first responding agencies and animal control departments, need not wait for permission from the CDC to change this vernacular. Even changing "dog bite" to "dog attack" would be an improvement.
We recommend three designations for emergency responders:
- Dog Bite
- Dog Mauling Event
- Rampage Mauling - A Multi-Victim Attack
Each designate different events that require a different response. A "dog bite" is a single victim event that may or may not require an emergency room visit (some victims are treated at the scene.) A "mauling event" is a single victim with multiple traumatic dog bite injuries. A rampage mauling, such as the Judith and Oviedo incidents, and the recent Seattle incident, often involves a single or multi-pit bull household, where the dog inflicts serious injuries to multiple victims.
Future Zoom Conference
Please leave ideas for topics and guests for a future Zoom conference in comments. We will forward them to Responsible Citizens for Public Safety, who will be organizing and hosting a future event (our role is post-conference video editing). We would certainly like to hear from doctors, first responders, animal control officers and family members of victims. There are also key civil and criminal liability issues (or a lack thereof) that attorneys or insurance professionals could address.
Injury severity and multi-victim attacks should be recognized in emergency response codes. When one has listened to as many fire/rescue audio log dispatch files responding to serious and fatal dog attacks as we have, it is clear that a "dog bite" response code is not enough.
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10/21/19: Event at the Michigan State Capitol Building on National Pit Bull Victim Awareness Day
Do the powers that be want the public to be fully aware of the threat that dangerous canines pose? If the powers that be want to hide the facts from the public, then what can the victims do to raise public awareness of this tragic scourge?
Unfortunately, a lot of those powers-that-be are dog worshippers. Don’t expect them to help us. We have to help ourselves.
Thank you for everything, Colleen and friends!
It’s heartbreaking that we need to do this. I agree that we do, but as a person who loves dogs as unique companion animals, invaluable in terms of their ability to partner with humans, I find it utterly devastating that this situation exists. A dog capable of mauling a human is something that should not exist.
Very true.
That was a good talk. I especially loved the information at the end. We truly cannot rely on vets and animal professionals to make good decisions. Their concerns are only with the dogs and it shows in their actions. These mutant animals need to be removed from our communities and soon. Worldwide, everywhere. They need to be gone.
Thank you, Colleen, for posting this. So informative, and so troubling at the same time. How will this ever change? As a broadcast journalist, I know the media is the most powerful tool out there. Inside Edition (not the BEST source) is one of the few national shows to do stories about pit fatalities/attacks. The last story they did, though, came off more as a feel-good story about a little boy getting horribly mauled trying to protect his sister. The kid was wonderful, but nothing was said about the pit bull who tore his face apart. It was treated like just another dog bite story. This subject is almost impossible to get elevated beyond local news. The only time is when it’s considered “sexy” e.g. a beautiful, pregnant French woman is mauled to death in the forest. It was treated like an unsolved mystery even though she was clearly killed by her vicious pit bull. I’ve heard no follow-up on this one, probably because of the pandemic?
Thank you all for your hard work and valuable insights.
Very good discussion. The group National Pit Bull Victim Awareness does a tremendous job of collecting data and sharing it. Unfortunately — if the city of San Francisco is any indication — their job is made much more difficult by the fact that the vast majority of dog attacks, including serious pit bull attacks, go unreported by local press.
Every week San Francisco has a vicious and dangerous dog hearing regarding one or more incidents. Most of these involve pit bulls. Among many other pit bull attacks last year, for instance, there were two separate incidents in which a woman was on the ground being relentlessly attacked by a pit bull and was saved only because there was a human being nearby who intervened. In one of those attacks, the 78-year-old victim was hospitalized for a week and faced a long recovery. But none of this was considered newsworthy by the local press (or the authorities who failed to issue a press release). THAT second attack, in fact, never even made it to a hearing, as the custodian of the dog immediately surrendered it for euthanasia.
And as Colleen well knows, a 2-year-old San Francisco boy was killed by a pit bull earlier this year. Although the fatal mauling took place outside the city, it’s shocking that newspapers and TV stations in the city couldn’t be bothered with the story. And I know this is the case because I myself tried to interest them in the story.
All of this, of course, facilitates the reckless campaign of animal control and others to get people to adopt pit bulls. So much so that one has to wonder if that isn’t the purpose of the press “blackout” in the first place.
Mike, you hit the nail on the head. Animal control agencies have been infiltrated by no-kill extremists.
One of their main goals is to get those pit bulls out the door and into loving homes. If the people in those loving homes become mauling victims, oh, well. Too bad. Because it’s all about saving dogs. We humans don’t matter.
Both of you are on the mark. Here’s the deal, I’ve worked at TV stations for years. Somewhere along the line, local news got fixated on cat and dog stories instead of real news. These show up usually at the end of the broadcast as feel-good segments. Although usually vapid, some were cute and often dumb. Like the family who found a cat in their couch after they moved. Or, the hero dogs who weren’t really heroes, they happened to bark at the fire. Good, of course, if they saved lives. But along the way, pit bulls became portrayed as “abused” and misunderstood. (Roll the tape on the Michael Vick story.) I saw grown women cry over these poor pitties who should be loved back to rehabilitation. Once the pit bull hit the mainstream, they’ve been lumped in with all the other good dog stories. The TV outlets are inundated with hate mail and calls if viewers perceive they’re picking on pits even if there’s a horrible attack. Hence, “a terrible accident” headline. Ratings and advertisers come first.
Reminds me of the “feel good” news story, “76 year old grandma gets new job at hotel”.
I was horrified. Why should some Grandma NEED a job at the local hotel? No health insurance or her pension was absconded by banksters.
Spin, spin and more spin. Whatever happened to critical thinking? I love pet stories, I’m guilty of plunging into the sinkhole of YouTube animal videos. I watch the dog ones with a jaundiced eye.
Skill might rehab *some* dogs if put into a strict management routine, it’s true. Love won’t. Love won’t fix psychopathy, either.
People’s sympathies are being manipulated towards dogs rather than their victims, you’re entirely correct there, Terry.