Linda Henry seen after surviving a near fatal pit bull mauling.
Victim After Mauling
UPDATE 05/31/13: Linda Henry who was nearly mauled to death by her own pit bulls in March, recently spoke to WDSU.com. Henry suffered the loss of both arms and disfiguring eye injury in the savage attack. The dogs also ripped most of her scalp from her skull. "The worst part," Henry said, "was my head." Henry underwent skin grafts this week to replace the skin that was ripped from her skull. A local company, Innovative Prosthetics, has donated new arms for Henry.
Councilman Glenn Green introduced a tougher breed-specific ordinance in the wake of Henry's attack. Green told WDSU: "No other dog is causing the problems that pit bulls are causing. We have to protect the public safety, (and) I'm going to do that." The new ordinance is to scheduled to go before Westwego City Council in July. Green previously said that Henry would testify at the public hearing. Henry, once a pit bull lover, now believes the breed should be banned.
04/10/13: Ordinance Drafted archived
Westwego city officials have drafted a new ordinance further targeting pit bulls. The action was driven by the savage pit bull mauling of Linda Henry. In March, three of four adult pit bulls that Linda had raised with her boyfriend since puppies ambushed her as she walked into her home.1 Henry suffered catastrophic pit bull injury, including the amputation of both arms, the loss of an eye and ear and devastating scalp injury -- the dogs ripped the scalp off the back of her head.
Westwego has had a pit bull ordinance since 2000 and city officials are strengthening it, proposing that owners be at least 21-years old and have at least $100,000 in liability insurance under their homeowners or rental policies. Also required under the proposed ordinance is mandatory microchipping and mandatory sterilization -- breeding new pit bulls will be banned. Police shot and killed all four adult pit bulls at the scene and seized a litter of eight pit bull puppies.
"They're going to be able to keep their pit bulls. They’re going to find it's a lot more expensive." -- Westwego City Councilman Glenn Green
The proposed ordinance will be reviewed more closely in July after newly elected City Council members take their seats. On Monday, Councilman Glen Green, who is leading the effort behind the proposed ordinance and visits Linda in the hospital, stated from the Westwego City Council podium: "I'm going to make sure your insurance company knows what's going on. I don't care if you don't like it. Unless you've been across the river to see Ms. Henry, you can't complain."2
03/18/13: Councilman Knows Victim archived
Linda Henry remained in critical condition at a New Orleans hospital Monday after suffering catastrophic pit bull injury. Westwego Councilman Glenn Green visited Henry at the hospital and said that he has seen improvement in her condition. Green said she now responds "when you talk to her" by wiggling her toes. Green said he's "had enough" after seeing Linda's devastating injuries and wants to make owning certain dog breeds more difficult inside Westwego city limits.
"I'm going to be a pain in their asses," Green said of owners of certain breeds. "That is the most vicious, brutal thing I've ever seen. I don't want to see that happen again to a citizen in Westwego."
Green said his plans are still in the works and he will seek support amongst his fellow City Council members to amend the city's current dog ordinance. Green added, "If they want to challenge it in court, so be it," Green said. "There are several breeds that I'm putting in there." In 2000, after the death of 2-year old Ramani Virgil, who was killed by his family's tethered pit bull, Westwego adopted an ordinance that spells out special confinement requirements for pit bulls.
Green said the severity of Linda's injuries will stay with him for a long time. "It happened in my district," Green said. "I have to step up to the plate. I mean this young woman, I've known her since she was a little girl. She is not just someone in my district. She is a friend, a family friend. I mean I can't even imagine living my entire life being vision impaired and having no arms." Linda lost an eye, ear and both arms in the attack. The pit bulls also tore off the back of her scalp.
03/14/13: Catastrophic Pit Bull Injury archived
Westwego, LA - Yesterday, the horrific pit bull attack that occurred in Westwego was added to the DogsBite.org Dog Bite Fatality Watch List. New details emerged today. Linda Henry, 54-years old, suffered catastrophic injury; two arm amputations and the loss of an eye and ear after a vicious attack by three pit bulls she had raised since puppies. The dogs also ripped the scalp off the back of her head. Westwego police arrived and shot and killed all of the adult pit bulls in her home.
As of Thursday, Henry remains in critical condition on life support at LSU Interim Hospital.3
Her boyfriend, Clarence Allen, who helped raise the dogs said, "I don't know why they did it … We had those dogs like kids in there. They never had a fight. I don't understand it." He said the two passed by each other just before the grisly attack. Allen was headed away to a corner store and Henry was on her way back home, "carrying her terrier dog."4 When Allen got to the store, his little cousin called him on the phone and said that police were at his home, shooting his dogs.
Doesn't understand it? Pit bulls are unpredictable.
Police Chief Dwayne "Poncho" Munch said, "It's the worst dog bite I've ever seen in 25 years of police work." The couple's pit bulls evidently attacked Henry as she walked into the home. Munch said when police arrived, "They could hear the woman screaming in the house. They saw all three dogs biting her." Officers immediately shot two pit bulls that charged them as they entered the home then shot the third dog that was still mauling Henry. A fourth pit bull was also shot.
A neighbor named Alma saw Henry walk into the home and moments later heard Henry screaming, "Get off of me." Alma said that Henry was in awful shape when officers removed her from the home. "Lord, it was devastating. I've never seen something like that." She added that police carried the dogs' bodies out in garbage bags, one of which leaked blood onto the street in front of her home. Puppies taken from the home were carried out in a kennel, according to Alma.
Pit bulls consistently maul and kill their owners.
Despite being hailed as the "most loyal" dog breed by their owners and advocates, pit bulls consistently maul and kill their owners. These attacks are on the rise as well. DogsBite.org noted in the 2011 fatality statistics, "Of the 8 total instances this year in which a family dog inflicted fatal injury to its primary caretaker, the dog's owner, 88% (7) involved pet pit bulls." The Occupy Maul Street blog keeps an ongoing log of these maulings and calls them Darwin attacks.
View the DogsBite.org Google Map: Louisiana Fatal Pit Bull Maulings.2Also on Monday, four police officers, three paramedics and a code enforcement officer were given certificates and greeted by applause from those in the packed City Council chamber for helping save Henry.
3Jennifer Abbrecht, the communications director for the Louisiana SPCA, spouts "typical" distortions about pit bulls in The Advocate article while the victim is on life support after suffering catastrophic pit bull injury. According to Abbrecht's pathetic pit bull apologia, Westwego officers should not have shot the dogs to save the woman's life either. DogsBite.org hopes that Councilman Glenn Green is not swayed by Abbrecht's reprehensible distortions.
4There were 4 adult pit bulls in the home and a litter of 8 pit bull puppies along with this "terrier."
Related articles:
10/04/12: 2012 Dog Bite Fatality: Pembroke 'Dog Rescuer' Killed by Own Dogs
09/11/12: 2012 Dog Bite Fatality: Jefferson County Woman Attacked by Own Pit Bulls Dies
08/17/12: 2012 Dog Bite Fatality: 23-Year Old 'Dog Rescuer' Mauled to Death by Own Dogs
05/08/12: 2012 Dog Bite Fatality: Pet Pit Bull Kills 74-Year Old Santa Fe Man
Pit bull breeders.
With all the surplus of pit bulls abandoned all over the country, you would think the pit bull lobbyists (that supposedly care about these dogs) would focus on the origin of the problem- the breeders.
No, the breeder lobby such as the AKC spends millions of dollars a year in lobbying to get the focus off breeders and let them escape responsibility and regulation.
Its many members scattered in AKC kennel clubs through every state, in various side lobbying groups such as NAIA and PetPac, and infiltrating state organizations such as the Farm Bureau, dictate to the naive to ignore the 500 pound breeder gorilla sitting on the whole problem.
They also have been wielding a hammer on politicians and government departments such as animal control to let the breeders evade responsibility and be able to keep mass breeding without regulation.
No Kill was invaded by breeders to pursue breeder interests via animal organizations and animal control, spreading more myths, like denying overpopulation and over breeding, and denying intentional breeding of vicious breeds.
The breeder industry business model is- breed as many dogs as possible (puppy mill registrations fund the AKC and its various events such as dog shows and kennel club activity, and they need more and more all the time) and fight off any regulation no matter what it is.
This isn't just a backyard breeder problem. It's a professional breeder problem too. They are wrapped together. The professional breeding industry has the money and contacts to manipulate authorities and trump public safety and welfare.
As long as business interests trump public safety and public interest, the deaths mount and the suffering increases.
And people fear sharks more! There was 1 fatal shark attack last year in the U.S.
Land sharks have killed 6, possibly 7 counting this woman, this year yet nothing is being done.
Aside from the fact that all these 'humane' societies, SPCAs, ACs, and veterinary associations have become exclusively pit-bull rights advocates, this isn't an animal welfare issue. This is an urgent public health and safety issue.
So I'm bothered that journalists everywhere turn to these pit-bull rights clubs for commentary about every mauling or killing. If they want to add some expert's opinion to an article about yet another mauling by pit bull, they ought to be phoning people who work in public health and safety. Or ER doctors and nurses, plastic surgeons and the like.
Until the Louisiana SPCA shows more respect for public health and safety, donors should withhold their money.
So in addition to a house filled to the brim with pit bulls, she had a rat terrier too:
According to Henry's husband, she's already underwent numerous surgeries including a double arm amputation. "Devastation, pure devastation, that's how I feel," said Clarence Allen. "She's on a ventilator and can't even talk." Allen said his wife was carrying their rat terrier inside the home when for reasons still unknown three of the family's four adult pit bulls attacked her.
Apparently the pit bulls, she had raised since puppies, had no interest in the terrier. The dogs had the single interest in mauling their owner to DEATH who had walked in and out of that home "thousands" of times, fed them "thousands" of meals, given them "thousands" of kisses. UNPREDICTABLE!
The absolute NONSENSE by so-called "experts" that ANY dog would launch a KILLING or AMPUTATION inducing attack when their owner walked through the front door because puppies were on the premises (and we don't know where in the home either) is GARBAGE. How many litters had been born in the home before?????
Did you all actually catch what the LA SPCA passed? It's much worse than what was told in the earlier article. The Nutters have highlighted the particulars here:
Section 18-294, specifically states with respect to the responsibility for classification of the designation of “dangerous,” a judge shall not base the determination of dangerous based on the breed of the dog.
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(i) A dog that has been deemed dangerous in another parish or state, must register with the Agency and meet the same requirements listed above….provided that the determination of viciousness was based, at least in part, on factor(s) other than the breed of the dog.
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http://bit.ly/10vxtkU
Also, "Guidry" is a longtime name in LA dogfighting. Funny how that works.
Love the way the husband snuck in the term "Raised"!
One raises rabbits…Pit breeders breed, sell dangerous dogs and don't pay taxes.
It should always be referred to as "Trafficking".
* SPECIAL NOTE:
This woman is the fifth surviving double arm amputee pit bull owner in the US.
Oh well, hose the blood off the porch and pump out another litter!
The absolute NONSENSE by so-called "experts" that ANY dog would launch a KILLING or AMPUTATION inducing attack when their owner walked through the front door because puppies were on the premises (and we don't know where in the home either) is GARBAGE.
And there is no point in listening to these idiots. This is a HUMAN health and safety issue – lets hear what they have to say.
I am going to assume the spawn of these beasts are going to be funneled out into neighborhoods.
Thinking otherwise would be to think that someone involved in dealing with the puppies would have a shred of common sense.
Common sense and city/town/government workers
never seems to go hand and hand.
Seeing the neighbor in the interview have her light-bulb moment as to what "provoked" the attack was also sickening. "It was the puppies" and all her neighbors yelled out in agreement and I thought I was going to hear "hallelujah" after it.
That seemed to be more then adequate justification for them as to why a family pet and the other family pets would literally try to tear you limb from limb. I shook my head so hard when watching that part I think I loosened some teeth.
I recently went to a house where they had a litter of puppies. Since they weren't pit bulls I lived to tell the tale.
These are the same people who will blame the victim for smelling like food, or petting the mutant during a thunderstorm. Nothing surprises me anymore.
I'm relieved to know this woman has survived. I thought for sure she wouldn't make it. The fact that she's made it this far is reassuring. Maybe when she's recovered enough, she can explain what set her dogs off.
What part of pit bulls are dangerous DON'T these people understand?
Ever wonder where Meth Lab operators get their guard dogs?!?
Pit Breeders like this one.
Oh well, Hose the blood off the porch and pump out another litter!
What set her dogs off? Maybe she dropped a pillow. Maybe she looked at them funny. Maybe she was crating and rotating and got the order wrong. Maybe she laughed. Maybe she touched a tail. Maybe she fell off a ladder. You are downplaying the horrific severity of her injuries – she will never be the same and is hardly surviving, minus two arms and an eye, not to mention the PTSD she will most definitely suffer from being nearly eaten alive by her "pets". You are downplaying the inherent unpredicatable nature of pit bulls by positing that they must have been "set off" somehow.
Comments like yours are usually made by pit bull owners and their apologists.
April 8 update – "And I'm going to make sure your insurance company knows what's going on," Green said from the Westwego City Council dais Monday night. "I don't care if you don't like it. Unless you've been across the river to see Ms. Henry, you can't complain."
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http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/as_westwego_woman_recovers_fro.html
Opalina, I am not a pit bull owner, or apologist. I was responding to Putmeincharge4oneday's posting of what the neighbors said.
"Seeing the neighbor in the interview have her light-bulb moment as to what "provoked" the attack was also sickening. "It was the puppies" and all her neighbors yelled out in agreement and I thought I was going to hear "hallelujah" after it."
That's why I said, maybe when the woman recovers enough, she can explain what set them off. I'm sorry I didn't use the word "provoke" or quote what I was responding to.
It's really sad, I come here to support the same views and beliefs, and I get attacked for what I say. I was happy this woman didn't die, but I sound like a pit bull owner. I am very against the breed, always have been. I have tried to fight for legislation in my own county, to no avail.
I feel like this site doesn't like outsiders. I'll stop referring to it when I argue against pit bulls. This isn't the first time what I've said has been taken the wrong way. I thought having more people in your corner was a good thing. I was wrong.
From the husband/boyfriend Clarence Allen: 04/10/13: "She died three times in the ambulance, but by the grace of god she’s still living. Walking, talking; baby I can still see, and praising god. And that’s what we gonna do for the rest of our life."
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http://bit.ly/16TAb5q
"Blood was everywhere. Because I had them braids, and they chewed all them braids up, the hair was all over the floor, all of the outside, just blood was everywhere,” said Henry."
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http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Pit-Bull-attack-prompts-controversial-call-for-stronger-laws-209756111.html
I'm having a hard time having much empathy with this woman. She says herself she's been breeding pit bulls for decades. Right.
If they had done this to anyone else, she would have been spouting the shit: you provoked it! it wasn't poor pitty's fault! can't ban a whole breed! blah-blah.
Now it's happened to her, suddenly it's a thing to take seriously — after decades of spreading deathly danger all around via her breeding operation.
I'm always glad when a pit psychopath / mental retard decides to speak out against pit bulls — but I still don't feel EMPATHY with them.
The only one I admire and empathize with in all this is Councilman Green. I hope he sustains his courage and makes it to the finish line with his wise actions.
Wondering how their attempt to ban Pit Bulls went. Anyone know?