By Melissa Charles
Doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital fought for hours to save the life of a man who was mauled yesterday afternoon in yet another gruesome pit bull attack, this time on Forshaw Street, Queenstown.
Up to press time last night, the man, a vagrant, was in the theatre receiving treatment.
The man arrived at the hospital around 2.40 pm, lying at the back of a pick-up and accompanied by an armed police officer. He was screaming in obvious pain and kept saying, “ah thirsty, ah thirsty, I want some water.”
Persons who had gathered at the hospital to await victims of an accident at Mahdia, expressed shock at the extent of the man’s injuries. His entire scalp seemed to have been ripped away exposing his bloodied skull and his right arm was severely injured. Bite marks were visible all over his body. The man was taken to the hospital by a neighbour and the owner of the dogs, Joseph Satrohan.
From all appearances, the dogs, which numbered around three, attacked the man when he went to the empty lot next door to their owners’ yard, to pick mangoes. The mangoes were left on the ground and bloodstains were also apparent, when Stabroek News visited the scene shortly after the attack. It appeared that the pit bulls entered the empty lot through a slot in the Satrohan fence.
This newspaper was informed that vagrants frequent the empty lot to pick mangoes; it was not clear who owns the property.
A resident said that she had just returned home around 2.20 pm when she heard barking and thought her neighbour’s dogs were fighting again, as they usually do. However, when they heard someone screaming, she and her husband ran outside and saw the three dogs all over someone on the ground, whose feet and hands were flailing in the air. Realizing what was happening, she said, her husband started hollering to get the dogs’ attention, while she attempted to contact the owner via telephone. She said that the owner was not at home but he arrived on the scene in minutes and struggled to get the man away from the dogs.
The woman said she was not sure whether anyone was at home at the owner’s house at the time of the attack and did not know whether the vagrant was in the Satrohans’ yard when he was attacked, as some persons believe. She related that witnessing such an incident was traumatic.
When Stabroek News visited Satrohan’s house, persons there offered “no comment” to questions asked. Further efforts to contact Satrohan proved futile.
A resident related that this was not the first time the dogs had attacked someone. She said that some months ago, the dogs had attacked the Satrohans’ gardener and a passer-by was also set upon some time back. However, neither of them was seriously injured in those attacks. She also said that the dogs were often on the street.
She added that a female security guard who works across the road, would often call her when she was a block or two away to ask her to call her neighbour to get the dogs off the road so that she (the guard) can get to her location.
The woman also said that the dogs were a constant nuisance. According to her, the Satrohans own around seven dogs, which include mixed breeds. “They constantly fight and you cannot sleep at night sometimes,” the woman said.
Another resident said the dogs should be put down. She said that once the animals tasted blood it was hard to control them. “We don’t feel safe with them around,” she said.
Pit bulls and other dangerous dogs have gained an unsavoury reputation in the country of recent, especially since the last fatal attack by a pack of dogs.
Charles Roopchand, a security guard of 2C Area H, Lusignan, ECD, was killed by a pack of dogs on the Ogle Airstrip road while on his way to work. That same morning, Desire London, the wife of Bishop Philbert London and resident of 123 Goedverwagting, ECD, was bitten on her arms and leg by the same animals.
Earlier this year, full-blooded members of the breed bit two Tucville residents as well as two employees of the Guyana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That incident had occurred after a woman in the area was alleged to have loosed the dogs on a group of children who had been making a nuisance of themselves.
Then there was the case last year where two pit bulls had attacked a North Ruimveldt jogger, seriously injuring him. He had to undergo several operations to repair his damaged ligaments and was to have gone overseas for treatment.
