Third installment of USA Today Ohio News Network series: ‘I figured I was dead.’ Ohio man survives attack by friend’s pit bull

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In the third installment of this compelling, though-provoking, and anger-inducing series, Akron Beacon Journal reporter Stephanie Warsmith recounts the story of 51-year-old Michael Palmer who lost his ears, thumbs, an index finger and part of  his nose when he was savagely attacked by a friend’s pit bull in December 2022: 

Michael Palmer of Green, Ohio shows his injuries he sustained after a friend’s pit bull attacked him. Photo by Lisa Scalfaro, Akron Beacon Journal.

Michael Palmer is a broken man.

He lives in fear, crashes on friends’ couches and feels uncomfortable when strangers stare at him.

This is all new to Palmer, now 51.

In December 2022, Palmer was viciously attacked by a friend’s pit bull at her Green home. Piper, the dog, bit off his ears, thumbs, an index finger and part of his nose.

Palmer can no longer work as a machinist, play guitar or pick up small items.

“I don’t like to go in public,” Palmer said in an interview at his attorneys’ office in Akron. “I go to stores and people stare. Some of them ask. I’d rather them ask than just stare and walk away.”

Palmer, who is living in Lakemore, said he mostly goes out at night when his injuries aren’t as noticeable.

After spending nearly three months in hospitals and going through seven surgeries, Palmer faces half a dozen more operations, along with constant PTSD and nightmares.

Keys or coins rattling together sound like a dog chain to Palmer, sending him into a panic.

“It puts the fear of a dog in my mind,” he said. “I see shadows of dogs all the time. I hear a dog bark and it’s pretty tough.”

Palmer was attacked by his neighbor Wendy Trippett’s pit bull when he went to her house in the early morning hours of Dec. 20, 2022. He said she invited him in and, when he started to open the door, the dog pounced.

The attack lasted nearly 15 minutes. The dog dragged Palmer onto the snow-covered ground and bit off chunks of his flesh and body parts while wagging its tail. The assault ended when a Summit County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed the dog.

Palmer doesn’t recall much after the dog first bit one of his hands until he woke up in the hospital days later.

“I figured I was dead,” he said.

The dog bit off a large area on the side of Palmer’s face, both ears, a thumb and forefinger on his right hand, and a thumb on his left hand. He also had bites to one of his arms and one of his legs.  Deputies were able to recover one of Palmer’s thumbs, but doctors couldn’t reattach it. Deputies determined the dog ate the other body parts.

Asked if anything can be learned from his attack, Palmer said: “Any dog can attack. You never know.”

Palmer’s attorneys say attack could have been avoided

Palmer’s attorneys said his attack could − and should – have been prevented. They believe the case illustrates the gaps in Ohio’s dangerous dog laws and their enforcement.

The attorneys are suing Kenneth Grable, who was the landlord of both Palmer and Trippett.

The attorneys claim Grable was aware of the dog’s prior attacks on two other people but did nothing about it, despite requests by his tenants.

Grable, though, argues he isn’t to blame for the attack. He said he understands Palmer tried to enter Trippett’s house uninvited and the dog attacked him.

“I thought it was a pretty good dog,” Grable said. “It was protecting its mom. That’s what dogs do.”

A jury trial was scheduled for this week in Summit County Common Pleas Court but was delayed. The trial will determine if Grable is liable and, if so, how much he owes Palmer in damages. Palmer’s medical bills so far are nearly $650,000, his attorneys say.

Pit bull attacked two other neighbors

Three months before Palmer’s attack, the same pit bull tried to attack the neighbor who would later see Palmer’s mauling.

Christine Witte, who lived next to Trippett on Warren Drive in Green, called 911 on Sept. 4, 2022, to report that her neighbor’s dog tried to attack her in her driveway while she was taking out the trash.

“I came around the corner and she came charging at me,” Witte said in an interview, referring to the pit bull that was female. “She was running around, trying to attack me. I put the trash can between me and her, ran back in the house, slammed the door and called 911.”

Witte, 59, said she wasn’t bit but was frightened.

Trippett wasn’t home at the time. Deputies gave her a warning for control of her dog and told her she “needs to watch the dog better and to fix the fence where it got out of the yard,” according to a report from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, which provides police services in Green.

Witte said she called Summit County Animal Control but was told there was nothing the agency could do.

Animal control mainly responds to complaints of stray dogs in townships, with cities handling their own dog complaints, said Greta Johnson, the assistant chief of staff and director of communications for the Summit County executive.

Shortly after the September incident, Witte said she saw the pit bull break free from its chain and try to attack a neighbor’s friend. The man climbed a tree to escape. After the man came down, the dog charged at him again and he again scrambled up the tree.

Grable, the landlord, witnessed the near attack, Witte said. He remarked that the dog was very strong.

This incident wasn’t reported to the sheriff’s office.

Witte said both she and another neighbor complained to Grable about the dog. She said he did nothing, though, and allowed the dog to remain.

Witte said she was so scared of the pit bull that she didn’t have a birthday party in her yard out of fear that someone would be attacked. She thinks more should have been done to protect her and her neighbors.

“There were a lot of missteps,” said Witte, who now lives in Akron. “I was trying to get the dog out of there.”

Grable said he told Trippett that she needed to do something about her pit bull.

“I told her, ‘Get rid of it or get insurance for it,'” Grable said. “She never did anything about it. I never forced it.”

Palmer blacks out during attack that lasts nearly 15 minutes

Palmer, who isn’t married and has two kids, moved into a house on Warren Drive at the beginning of the summer of 2021.

Palmer said he went to Trippett’s house about 4 a.m. December 20, 2022, when she asked to borrow $20. He said he was wary about her pit bull but she had always put the 100-pound dog in a back bedroom when he’d visited before.

Here’s what happened next, according to Palmer, witness reports and police body-worn camera footage:

Palmer knocked and Trippett told him to come in.

When Palmer opened the door, the pit bull pounced, dragging him into the yard. Trippett tried to get her dog to stop by hitting it with a broom. This didn’t help.

The dog grabbed Palmer’s pant leg as he tried to spin around and hit it. It grabbed his pant leg again and he hit it on top of its nose.

Palmer fell to the ground and tried to bear hug the dog. It pulled him to the ground several times while he yelled at Trippett to get her “f—— dog!”

Witte heard the commotion and asked Palmer if he needed help. He asked her to call 911.

Witte thought about hitting the dog with a shovel but was afraid it would turn on her. She went inside and called 911, screaming, “Please come!” to the dispatcher.

Palmer tried to climb in a pickup truck in the driveway, but the dog pulled him back down.

Palmer blacked out when the dog bit him on the right hand and was then in and out of consciousness.

“I don’t remember it biting off my finger, biting off my ears,” he said. “It’s not like I looked down and said, ‘My fingers are gone.’”

When Deputy Nick DiSabato arrived, the dog was still mauling Palmer.

“Get the dog off this guy!” Witte shouted.

DiSabato shot the dog and it yelped, then ran around the front of the house. The deputy shot the dog twice more.

“Dog’s down!” DiSabato said into his radio, then added that Palmer needed an ambulance for dog bites all over his body.

Deputies attempted to provide Palmer with first aid until paramedics arrived.

“We’re here, alright?” a deputy said to Palmer, whose body was surrounded by blood in the snow.

The deputy urged Palmer to stay still.

“Please, please, please!” Palmer pleaded. “Oh my God, please!”

Paramedics arrived, put Palmer on a gurney and headed to Summa Akron City Hospital.

Palmer endures surgeries and PTSD after attack

Palmer woke up in the hospital with a deputy standing at the end of his bed. It was Christmas Eve, four days after the attack.

Palmer was in the hospital for 20 days and then transferred to a skilled nursing facility where he stayed for several weeks.

Palmer has so far had seven surgeries and his doctors say he needs at least five or six more. He said he has PTSD and the surgeries have been difficult.

“My mental health things happening slowed everything down,” he said.

Palmer is still missing part of his nose and parts of both his ears, as well as both his thumbs and a finger on his right hand. He said the loss of his thumbs and finger makes it difficult to pick things up. If he drops something at the store, such as coins, he just leaves them.

Palmer has been living with his mother in his childhood home in Lakemore but she has a 180-pound Rottweiler, which is difficult because he’s now frightened of dogs, and particularly large ones. He often sleeps on friends’ couches.

Palmer, who was a machinist, hasn’t been able to work since the attack. His medical expenses have been paid by Ohio Medicaid, a state and federally funded health plan for low-income and disabled Ohioans.

Palmer no longer socializes with many people. When people come to his mother’s house to see him, he sometimes doesn’t answer the door.

“My life’s changed,” he said. “Totally. 100%.”

Palmer thinks a younger person or a much older person likely wouldn’t have survived this attack. He said dogs – and not just pit bulls – should be taken seriously.

“I don’t think anybody should have to go through it,” he said of his attack.

Pit bull owner isn’t charged 

Trippett, the pit bull’s owner, gave a different account to sheriff’s deputies of what happened before Palmer’s attack.

She said Palmer came to her house to help paint, but, when he got there, knocked one time, opened the door and walked in.

She said Palmer didn’t give her time to answer the door and shouldn’t have just walked in, according to a sheriff report.

Deputies saw a roller and other paint materials in the front yard, according to the report.

Palmer, though, told deputies he went to Trippett’s house to loan her money. He said she invited him in and the dog attacked when he tried to enter.

Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Felicia Easter declined to file charges because of the conflicting statements. She also noted that the dog hadn’t been deemed vicious by Green, according to the report.

Palmer sues dog owner and landlord

Palmer filed a negligence lawsuit in May 2023 against Trippett and Grable in Summit County Common Pleas Court.

The suit said Palmer has serious, permanent and substantial physical injuries, including physical deformity. He has suffered pain and suffering, health care expenses, loss of income, a diminished capacity to earn income, and emotional distress and anxiety, according to the complaint.

Grable denied all the allegations. He is representing himself because he has been unable to find an attorney, though he has talked to a dozen. He said he feels bad about what happened to Palmer but doesn’t understand why he’s being blamed.

“How can somebody be guilty of something I had nothing to do with?” he asked.

Grable said he has no liability insurance.

“Who’s got the money for that?” he asked.

Grable filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in August 2023, which was denied. He claimed the pit bull attacked Palmer because Palmer was trespassing. He also claimed the dog “has never shown any signs of being dangerous,” which is contradicted by reports and neighbors’ accounts.

Trespassing is one of the defenses that can be offered by someone being sued in a dog bite case.

Trippett was dismissed from the lawsuit in February 2024 without prejudice, which means the suit against her could potentially be refiled, according to court records.

Dylan Statler, Trippett’s Akron attorney, said this “was a very traumatic thing for her.”

“At this time, she’s not wanting to speak about this matter,” Statler said.

The case against Grable was set for a jury trial on March 10 in Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands’ courtroom, but this was delayed and a new trial date hasn’t yet been set.

Second installment of USA Today Ohio News Network series “Vicious: An investigation into how Ohio laws fail thousands of dog attack victims”

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In the second installment of this compelling, though-provoking, and anger-inducing series, Columbus Dispatch reporter Laura Bischoff  recounts the story of 11-year-old Avery Russel who was attacked and severely injured by two pit bulls…

Click here to read/view all the stories in the series.

‘Just tell me if my daughter’s alive.’ After near fatal dog attack, family wants changes

Avery Russell, 11, of Columbus is rebuilding her life after a traumatic attack by two pit bulls on June 11, 2024. Surgeons at Nationwide Children’s Hospital performed a nine hour emergency surgery just after the attack. Photo by Barbara J. Perenic of the Columbus Dispatch.

Drew Russell could barely understand her daughter’s friend on the phone that day. The panicked girl tried to relay that her only child, Avery Russell, had been bitten by dogs.

The 11-year-old girl passed the phone to a neighbor, a man with little information about the chaotic scene. He handed the phone to Reynoldsburg Police Officer Nicholas Lewis.

“Just tell me if my daughter’s alive,” Drew said.

“I can’t tell you that,” Lewis told her. Then he added: “Don’t come here. Meet us at Children’s.”

Drew flew down I-70, hitting 120 miles an hour and praying a cop would pull her over and take her to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.

Avery is her everything. A sweet, smart and loving 11-year-old girl with a knack for computer coding and math.

By the time Drew ran into the trauma bay, teams of nurses, doctors and paramedics swarmed her child. A chaplain, Rev. Kelsie Meyers, stepped in front of Drew. The look on Meyers’ face told Drew that it was bad. Real bad.

“No one had told me anything. So, I still had no idea the severity of the situation,” Drew said. “Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.”

Two pit bulls, Apollo and Layla, chewed off most of Avery’s ears, ripped into her nose, left a huge gouge above her left eye and punctured her forehead and shoulder. Her face looked like ground hamburger.

“My reaction was like, ‘Oh, my God. That’s not my child!'” Drew recalled. “I was fully in shock. I could never have fathomed that that call would lead to that.”

Avery’s left eye was swollen shut, so Drew leaned in close to her right side. She wanted Avery to know she was with her.

“If you can hear mommy’s voice, squeeze my hand,” Drew told her 11-year-old, fighting for her life.

Avery gave her mom’s hand a little squeeze.

Before surgeons began what would be a nine-hour operation, putting Avery’s face back together like a jigsaw puzzle, Drew pleaded with them:

“Just save my daughter. Just save her. Save her. Just please save her and bring my baby back to me.”

‘Our whole life has literally been flipped’

Three months after the brutal mauling, Drew is steaming with anger. She’s mad at the dogs’ owner. She’s upset with the plodding pace of prosecution.

She’s angry that one of the two dogs is still alive. She calls it shameful that the dog owner, Stephanie Ayers, asked the court to give her back her dog.

“My daughter almost died. And our whole life has literally been flipped. Nothing looks the same as it did six months ago,” she said.

Drew can’t sleep. Every time she shuts her eyes, she sees Avery’s torn and bloody face. She quit her job and closed her nail salon so she could care for Avery.

The calendar is packed with therapy appointments: physical, speech, occupational, feeding, trauma, burn and scar. Even after four surgeries, Avery still needs new ears and a new nose. Everything so far has been reconstructive, not cosmetic.

The mother mourns the loss of her daughter’s happy childhood. The physical scars, though extensive, pale in comparison to the mental trauma.

The fear, flashbacks and PTSD are constantly lurking, ready to erupt. Dogs in public bring on intense panic for Avery. Drew can’t even say the word “dog” around Avery.

Even the best laid plans to protect Avery get derailed. Drew and Avery’s mental health team wanted to prepare her before the child would see the damage to her face. But Avery caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror long before she was ready. Avery didn’t recognize herself.

Now when she looks in the mirror, she says: “Mommy, how long do I have to look like this? Why did this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?”

Drew has no good answers. “I feel so helpless in this whole situation because there is nothing I can do to make it better.”

Therapy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Avery grabs a red foam rod that looks like a Twizzler and uses both hands to twist it into opposite directions. Her slender wrists flex as occupational therapist and certified hand therapist Jim Falk watches. He runs her through more progressive resistance exercises that will help her with everyday tasks, like opening a bottle, drinking from a glass and tying her hair back into a ponytail.

When Drew intervenes too much, Avery gives a drawn-out groan. “Moooooom.”

“These are essential life skills, especially with all that hair,” Drew says.

Falk, who focuses on hand therapy, runs Avery through more tasks. “Her strength is actually going up, even though she’s getting tired.”

“I’m proud of you, Boo,” Drew tells her.

Falk then gives Avery a head nod toward the basketball half-court that is part of a new physical therapy area at Nationwide Children’s. “You ready?”

She smiles and skips over to the bin of basketballs. She dribbles one to the free-throw line. Basketball is her true love. Avery can’t wait for the school basketball season to start up again in November. It’s something to work toward.

Avery hurls the ball toward the basket, hitting the rim but missing. She fluidly makes a couple of layups and returns to the line. Avery sinks a couple of shots, grinning a crooked smile.

Two months before this October appointment, Avery couldn’t throw the ball anywhere close to the rim. She just didn’t have the strength and stamina.

Avery bounds through the hallway and lobby. By now she knows her way through the sprawling building to her next two appointments: speech and physical therapy.

“How was school today? Any trouble being understood in the classroom over the last few weeks? And how do you feel about your volume when you’re talking?” the speech therapist asks Avery.

Avery, suddenly quiet and shy, gives the therapist a so-so hand signal. The two go over strategies to increase speech fluency and volume.

She sounded like a mild mouse when she awoke from surgery and hospital staff removed the intubation. The speech therapist worked with Avery, helping her re-learn how to chew and eat. Still, lasting nerve damage means she can’t feel her nose running or when she has food on part of her face.

Drew said Avery, who has autism, has always been a quiet talker but had made strides toward speaking up. Then the attack and trauma set her back. Drew tells her daughter she wants her to speak up. “You have important things to say.”

In her physical therapy session, Avery is keen to beat her own records. Her competitive streak shows. On a one-leg bridge pose, she starts to get shaky.

“You got it, Avery, you got it. You’re already past your high score,” her therapist says.

“I don’t even know my high score,” Avery says.

“It’s 17 seconds. You’re at 39 now.”

Avery drops her butt to the mat, satisfied.

The session marks her last one over four months. The therapist tells Avery to do her PT exercises at home. “You’ll be a better basketball player.”

Avery may be done with PT for now, but she faces years of procedures and rehab.

“I was just told that she’s probably going to have to get what’s left of her ears removed so that they can give her new ones,” Drew said. “So, yeah, she has a long road ahead. Probably going to take years before she’s back to herself, and she probably never will be back to the way she was before.”

Drew is hoping that a year from now, Avery will have a new nose and ears.

“In 10 years, I’m hoping that this becomes a distant memory and that she is able to be an advocate and use her testimony to help other kids get through traumatic things,” Drew said.

Two pit bulls, a power washer and a cop

Drew rarely let Avery go on play dates with anyone but close friends and family. She was protective of Avery ever since doctors diagnosed her with autism spectrum disorder around age 7.

But on the day of the attack, Drew dropped Avery off at her friend Kiera’s house around 8:45 a.m. and headed to work in Westerville. Kiera and Avery are friends from school.

Jessica Henry, Kiera’s mom, called Drew that afternoon to let her know she’d be taking the girls to her cousin’s place in Reynoldsburg. Drew didn’t know about the four pit bulls at the house. She didn’t know that the Reynoldsburg neighbors considered the dogs aggressive and menacing.

And Drew didn’t know that Ayers’ dogs previously had bitten two of Henry’s children − one in the arm, another in the face − less than a year before this. Ayers and Henry knew, according to the police report, but they still had Avery and Kiera over for the play date.

That afternoon, the girls went inside the house to use the bathroom. That’s when the two adult dogs and two puppies cornered Avery, barking and growling at her. Henry said she placed her body between Avery and the two pit bulls but when she tried to open a door to let Avery slip out, one of the dogs bit Henry in the forearm.

Terrified, Avery bolted to the backyard. The dogs chased after her.

Henry said when she tried to save Avery, the dogs attacked her − biting Henry’s arms, chest, shoulder, ear and throat. They took off a chunk of her ear.

“They got my throat and I thought for sure I was about to die. My daughter was standing there, she watched it,” said Henry, 37, a mother of five.

Working from home that day, Kevin Messenger heard the kids playing and dogs barking in the yard next door. It was part of the soundtrack of the neighborhood. But something wasn’t right this time.

Looking out the window, he said he saw one of the pit bulls violently yank a woman in the backyard. Most of the kids scattered. Two pit bulls latched onto Avery, tugging her like a rag doll.

Messenger later told police in a statement: “The neighbor dogs have always been kind of aggressive: Apollo growling at me across the fence, both adult dogs attacking and damaging the fence in between us and even causing some minor injuries to my own dog.”

Neighbors called 911 and pounded on the wooden privacy fence. A child threw dog treats into the yard, hoping to distract them. The dogs dragged Avery deeper into the backyard.

Zachary Ruff, who was power washing a nearby house, heard children screaming and saw two pit bulls chewing on Avery’s face. He dashed back to his equipment, grabbed the hose and sprayed water at the dogs. His quick action interrupted the grisly attack.

Just outside the fence, a breathless woman frantically told Reynoldsburg Police Officer Scott Manny: “One of the kids isn’t moving. The adult is moving. Don’t know where the dog is.”

Manny called in an “officer in trouble” signal, glanced through the slats in the fence, unholstered his Glock and shoved open the gate. A blast from the power washer caused the large, tan pit bull to back off of Avery. It charged toward Manny.

The officer squeezed off three quick shots, hitting the dog and sending it back into the house, yelping. He closed the door to the back porch.

“Radio, I got two down in the back yard in bad shape. One dog shot. Inside the house,” Manny told dispatchers.

Shaken by the grisly scene, the officer donned latex gloves as Avery whimpered. Her face was so ripped apart that Manny couldn’t tell if she was a boy or girl.

“Most of her face was either torn off or torn open,” he wrote in his report later.

He scooped the girl up and carried her to the front of the house, where Truro Township paramedics awaited.

“We didn’t know what was going on. It was so chaotic. Officer Manny came out with her in his arms,” said Truro Twp. Firefighter-Paramedic Mick Pfaff. “We got her in the truck and – whoosh – off to the hospital.”

In his entire 17-year career, Pfaff said he’d never seen such severe injuries on a child.

“It’s never easy to see a child suffering like that.”

Pfaff and his colleagues started a GoFundMe for Drew and Avery. He later visited Avery at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, after surgeons spent nine hours rebuilding her face. Pfaff said the repairs were nothing short of amazing. “If you’d seen where she was that day, you’d be shocked.”

After the attack, Ayers, the dog owner, paced the sidewalk outside her house. A police body camera captured Ayers showing more concern for her dogs than for Avery, who at the time was in critical condition.

“Like do I think this is right? F— no. Am I okay with any of this?,” Ayers said. “No. I’m not saying that I think that my dog did the right thing. None of that. But my dog doesn’t deserve to be sitting there f—— suffering. The little girl ain’t laying there suffering still.”

Now Avery’s days are marked by surgeries, medical appointments, sixth-grade classes, basketball games and questions about her future.

“My daughter’s whole life has changed. She is 11 years old. She has to live with this her whole life,” Drew said.

Drew is more worried about Avery’s mental health. Already, she sees her self-confidence diminished. And high school is just around the corner.

“My prayer is that she’ll look somewhat normal by the time she’s good and ready to go to high school. Because that’s when kids get the meanest. And that’s when your hormones start to develop and your emotions are all over the place,” Drew said. “As her mom, I worry about how she is mentally.”

A demand for reform

Drew hired Columbus attorney Bill Patmon to find out what happened, press for criminal charges, pursue a civil case and advocate for changes in state law.

They plan to ask lawmakers to adopt reforms that they believe will bring more accountability for owners and justice for victims and deter irresponsible behavior by dog owners.

“If we don’t fight or try to effect some kind of change, then what’s it all for? What’s all the suffering for? Because it’s just going to keep happening,” Drew said.

Their starting point: allow felony charges against dog owners who knew their animals could be dangerous, enhance penalties when children are the victims, require insurance coverage for dog ownership, expand responsibilities for local dog wardens, add harsher penalties in cases of serious injuries and mandate euthanasia for dogs after the first kill.

Currently, violations of Ohio’s dog laws are misdemeanors, punishable with fines and restrictions for handling the dog in the future. The fines start at $25 and putting a dog down isn’t mandated until it’s killed a second person.

“As a human, you go out and you kill someone, you’re mandated by law to spend the rest of your life in prison, right? You don’t get the opportunity to kill a second person. So, why would we allow an animal to do that? That’s crazy. And maybe that’s why the other dog hasn’t been put down,” Drew said.

After the attack on Avery, neighbors told the cops about how they’d seen the dogs acting aggressively in the past. But none of that got reported to police or the dog warden. That makes it harder for victims of serious attacks to argue that the owners should face more consequences.

“They’re saying because these dogs have never been reported as vicious, they can’t label them as such. And I just think, excuse my language, that’s a crock of s—,” Drew said. “Just look at her….They didn’t just nip at her little leg or her arm. No, they went straight for her jugular. They attacked to kill her.”

Jessica Henry lived with her cousin and the dogs for several months. Stephanie Ayers, the cousin, has custody of two of Henry’s five children. Henry knew the dogs to be territorial and barked at strangers but said she didn’t know that the dogs had bitten her two kids who live with Ayers.

Ayers and her attorney have declined comment.

Now, Henry wants Ohio’s dog laws changed to impose more serious penalties when dogs viciously attack people, including automatic euthanasia. “It’s a dog. If it did it once, it’s going to do it again and next time, somebody may not survive.”

Drew acknowledges that law changes are unlikely to fix all the problems of irresponsible dog ownership. But she said: “If you don’t try and start somewhere, then it’s just going to remain the same.”

Other attorneys who take dog bite cases say Ohio shelters should be required to maintain and share better records on dogs’ histories before adopting them out to new owners.

Patmon knows his way around the Ohio General Assembly and dog laws. His father served two terms in the Ohio House and carried a bill to make animal cruelty and abuse a felony.

Drew finds it paradoxical that it’s a felony to abuse a pet but not a felony for a pet to disfigure a child.

“I have to see this every time I look at my baby. I barely recognize her,” Drew said. “It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not okay.”

No ‘picture day’ for Avery

Drew suggested homeschooling Avery for sixth grade this year. Avery insisted on going back to class and being with her friends.

St. Catharine School is like a protective nest for Avery. Most of her classmates and a few teachers visited her during her month in the hospital.

Still, the new Avery isn’t the old Avery. She didn’t want to go to picture day at school. Drew gave her a mental health day. No point in making the disfigured child watch all her friends enjoy smiling for school pictures.

“Rather than put her through that and to cause more trauma onto the trauma, I let her stay home. She got a free day.”

Avery’s father has never been in her life and still isn’t, even after Drew told him about the attack, she said. But Drew’s parents, sister, cousins, close friends and the “Super Moms” at Avery’s school support them at every step.

“It’s very hard for me to ask for help and admit when we need it. I’m working on it and getting a bit better,” Drew said. “This situation has taught me that, but it’s really easy to have all the support in the world and still feel alone.”

Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

Vicious: Dog attacks maim, disfigure and kill every year. How Ohio law fails victims

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We are pleased to reprint the first installment of “VICIOUS: An investigation into how Ohio laws fail thousands of dog attack victims,” the outstanding investagatory series written by Columbus Dispatch reporter Laura Bischoff and her colleagues at the Akron Beacon Journal, Canton Repository, and Cincinnati Enquirer.  The first report in the series titled “Vicious: Dog attacks maim, disfigure and kill every year. How Ohio law fails victims” examines the serious shortcomings in Ohio law that put us all at risk:

If a person tears off someone’s ear or nose in a bar brawl, jail time is almost certain. If they kill someone, they will likely go to prison for years. But under Ohio law, the owner of a dog that disfigures or even kills someone is likely to pay a fine that’s little more than a traffic ticket.

The law also does not require that a vicious dog be euthanized after such an attack, even if it results in a fatality.

Only after a dog kills two people does Ohio law require that it be put down.

Former state lawmaker Bill Beagle, a Tipp City Republican who tried unsuccessfully to make the law tougher, said vicious dogs get “one free growl, one free bite and one free kill” before the dog or its owner face serious consequences.

Read the entire story:

Amriel Wilkinson, 11, suffered significant injuries when a Rottweiler attacked her at age 4 in 2018 in Indian Hill. Her family sued the dog owner, a former Major League Baseball player and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Picture by Albert Cesare, The Enquirer.

By the fall of 2024, everyone on Kildow Court knew the dogs were dangerous.

The two pit bulls, Apollo and Echo, sometimes ran free among the condominiums in the Ashville neighborhood, growling, barking and menacing neighbors. Once, Apollo attacked a woman who was out for a walk, killing her dog and leaving her with broken bones and cuts.

The condo association sent letters to the dogs’ owners, Susan Withers and her son, Adam, demanding they get rid of the dogs. It imposed fines and filed a civil lawsuit in Pickaway County.

Nothing worked. Even after the first documented attack, a judge allowed the Withers to keep their dogs after they paid a $25 fine and put up “Beware of Dog” signs.

One sign wasn’t visible from the patio. Another small sign, about the size of a bumper sticker, was still hanging in a window of the Withers’ condo near Circleville when 73-year-old Jo Ann Echelbarger, their next-door neighbor, went outside to work in her garden on Oct. 17, 2024.

Apollo and Echo pounced, viciously attacking Echelbarger. Her husband, Stanley, 84, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, watched helplessly from the screened-in porch as the dogs mauled his wife, breaking her neck, tearing her scalp and leaving her covered in blood. She died within minutes.

“It’s just unfathomable,” Tasha Rogers, Echelbarger’s daughter-in-law, said weeks later. “She had no chance.”

Dog attack fines in Ohio are akin to a traffic ticket

What happened to Echelbarger is the worst-case scenario: Ohio averages about two fatal dog attacks a year. But a nine-month investigation by The Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Akron Beacon Journal and The Canton Repository found it is a symptom of a larger problem, one that threatens the safety and health of thousands of Ohioans every year.

Time and again, gruesome attacks like the one that killed Echelbarger happen despite warnings, complaints and previous attacks that went unheeded by dog owners and unpunished by the legal system.

If a person tears off someone’s ear or nose in a bar brawl, jail time is almost certain. If they kill someone, they will likely go to prison for years. But under Ohio law, the owner of a dog that disfigures or even kills someone is likely to pay a fine that’s little more than a traffic ticket.

The law also does not require that a vicious dog be euthanized after such an attack, even if it results in a fatality.

Only after a dog kills two people does Ohio law require that it be put down.

Former state lawmaker Bill Beagle, a Tipp City Republican who tried unsuccessfully to make the law tougher, said vicious dogs get “one free growl, one free bite and one free kill” before the dog or its owner face serious consequences.

In some respects, state law treats dogs better than victims of dog attacks. Mistreating a dog – animal cruelty – can be a felony in Ohio. A vicious dog attack is a misdemeanor in almost every case.

And the attacks often are very serious.

Dogs bite about 17,000 people a year in Ohio severely enough to require medical attention or to prompt calls to law enforcement. Experts estimate the actual total is double that, because so many bites go unreported. Often people don’t even know they’re supposed to report bites. And public health agencies don’t categorize bite reports by how serious they are, leaving a gap in understanding the scope of the problem.

The victims, many of them children like Avery Russell of Columbus, are left with both physical and emotional scars. Some are horribly disfigured. Others lose limbs or suffer injuries so serious they can no longer work or perform simple tasks without help. Medical bills can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

After Savannah Coleman, an 8-year-old from Dayton, was mauled by a dog six years ago, she underwent multiple surgeries. Her mother, Tierney Dumont, was stunned by the lack of consequences under Ohio law.

While Savannah struggled to recover and medical bills mounted, the dog’s owners paid a $120 fine.

“It’s a very frustrating process,” Dumont said. “When you’re seeing your child mauled, could’ve easily died, and then no one wants to be held accountable.”

Missed chances to seize the vicious dogs

The many flaws in Ohio’s dog laws opened the door to tragedy in the months and days before Echelbarger’s death. Weak enforcement. Inadequate penalties. A failure to take seriously a looming danger.

Despite multiple opportunities to intervene before the fatal attack, no one did.

A year before Apollo and Echo mauled Echelbarger, Kimberlee Black encountered Apollo while walking her golden doodle puppy, Nemo, in the neighborhood around Kildow Court.

The pit bull went after both Black and her puppy. Black suffered lacerations and four broken bones, and she had to euthanize Nemo because the puppy’s injuries were so severe.

Black filed a complaint with the Pickaway County dog warden and assumed authorities would move quickly to address the threat posed by the Withers’ dogs. She soon learned otherwise.

In the months that followed, authorities gave Adam and Susan Withers leeway again and again. They did not have to euthanize Apollo. They didn’t have to buy liability insurance. They paid only a $25 fine and were ordered to get a dangerous dog license, keep the dogs muzzled and leashed and put up the “Beware of Dog” sign, which was tucked in the bottom of a window, behind a screened-in porch. A second sign was posted but not visible from the patio.

But the Withers either waited months to follow those orders or, in some cases, ignored them altogether. It took them 271 days to buy the required dangerous dog tag. They were repeatedly ticketed for failing to follow the rules, including keeping the dogs on leashes, but authorities never impounded the dogs. The law only lets the warden impound dogs found running loose or found not wearing valid dog tags.

Black was stunned by what she considered the authorities’ lack of concern for the threat that Apollo and Echo posed to her and her neighbors.

“I’ve lived in fear for a fricking year over a goddamn dog that has more rights to live and breathe than me,” said Black.

Black took it upon herself to warn her neighbors that the Withers’ dogs were more than menacing, as many already knew, but a physical threat to their safety. She also sued the Withers, arguing the dogs were dangerous.

Authorities had other chances to intervene. Five weeks before Echelbarger’s death, the judge overseeing the condo association’s lawsuit issued a civil order to immediately remove Apollo and Echo from the Withers’ home. The Withers did not follow the court’s instructions.

Another missed opportunity came in late September, three weeks before the attack on Echelbarger, when neighbors called police to report menacing dogs in the street. When police arrived, they said they found an intoxicated Adam Withers and his dogs.

Apollo was not muzzled or on a leash, as a court had ordered after the attack on Black.

According to police, Withers told them he had used cocaine in his garage. The officer noticed one of the dogs behaving erratically and said he believed both dogs were exposed to the drug. Police charged Adam Withers with disorderly conduct, but they did nothing about the dogs.

Ashville Police and the village officials declined to respond to criticisms.

Even on the day Echelbarger died, there was hesitation to act. When police officer Antonio Jester arrived on the scene, he found Echo, covered in Echelbarger’s blood, standing near her body.

His body camera captured this exchange:

“You want me to put the dog down?” Jester asked Acting Police Chief Daniel Mettler, who arrived at the same time.

Mettler paused. “Yeah,” he said. “Probably ought to.”

Echelbarger’s husband, stunned and distraught, pleaded with him to do it. “You got to kill it,” he said. “It attacked my wife.”

The officer asked again, and Mettler consented. Jester fired four shots. The dog yelped and ran back inside Withers’ condo before dying from its wounds. Police killed Apollo a short time later, running him over with a sheriff’s SUV and shooting him.

Roughly at the time of the attack, Adam Withers picked up his mom from work and the two went to a casino. When they got home, police had already left and they found Echo, dead inside on the hallway floor.

Both Adam and Susan Withers were charged with involuntary manslaughter and failure to confine their dogs. They pleaded not guilty.

On the witness stand in his own defense, Adam Withers told jurors he made sure to lock the front door before leaving the condo that day and he still has no idea how the dogs got out.

Ashville police testified at the trial that Withers’ front door didn’t latch. They had stuffed a towel in the hole where the deadbolt should have been.

In February, the mother and son showed no response when the judge read aloud in court the guilty verdict on all charges. Jo Ann’s family wept and hugged in the courtroom.

For the Echelbarger family, that’s too little, too late. Her adult children, Bill Rogers and Earlene Romine, place blame on a system that didn’t take the threat seriously until their mother was dead.

“I want answers. I want accountability for everyone that was reckless in this situation. And I want my mom’s death to mean something,” said Romine. “I want it to help the community so that this doesn’t happen to somebody else. This can never happen again. This is the most horrific thing that a person could go through, especially such a beautiful, wonderful person as my mom.”

For Echelbarger’s husband, Stanley, the loss is profound.

After the attack, he moved to a nursing home, ambling in on a walker. Since then, he’s lost 40 pounds and is mostly bedridden. He was unable to attend the trial.

“He lost the love of his life. He lost his caregiver. He lost his home,” Romine said. “I mean, he lost everything.”

10 years ago, lawmakers tried, and failed, to strengthen Ohio laws

Ohio’s dangerous dog laws, and the patchy enforcement system, failed to protect Echelbarger.

But the problem isn’t new.

A decade before her death, a strikingly similar case in Dayton revealed the same weaknesses and spurred a push to strengthen Ohio’s dog laws.

Klonda Richey’s neighbors’ dogs terrified her. The 57-year-old woman repeatedly complained to the Montgomery County dog warden, installed a fence around her yard in Dayton and asked for a civil protection order.

None of that protected her.

In February 2014, two mixed-Mastiff dogs savagely attacked Richey in her front yard while she took out her garbage. A passer-by found her bloodied, dead body in the snow on her front lawn. The dog owners, Andrew Nason and Julie Custer, were found guilty of failure to control dogs. The municipal court judge sentenced Nason to five months in jail and $500 in fines and Custer to three months in jail and $200 in fines.

Six years after her death, Montgomery County agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit her family brought against the county and Mark Kumpf, its former dog warden, for failing to act prior to the fatal attack.

Beagle, the former Republican state lawmaker, was among six legislators to introduce reforms. His bill would’ve increased penalties to a possible felony charge for attacks that led to serious injuries or the death of a companion animal. It also would have allowed a court to order euthanasia of a dog after one attack, shifted the burden from the victim to the owner to prove whether the dog was provoked, and increased penalties for owners who ignore notices from dog wardens.

Beagle said he wanted to provide the legal options to put down a dog after the first serious injury attack and charge the owner with a felony.

His bill went nowhere.

What happened? Opponents didn’t like the idea that the government can seize a pet and put it down. Studies have found that half of Americans consider their dogs as much a family member as their human relatives.

The bill also met resistance over whether the government should be able to send someone to prison over their dogs’ behavior, or whether the government should set standards that allow authorities to euthanize them.

Looking back, Beagle said of his bill: “It was bold. In some respects, maybe it was too bold.”

Debate over tangential issues, such as dog tethering, bogged down the bill. Dog owners, wardens, veterinarians, prosecutors and animal rights groups all weighed in and tried to shape the bill. That kind of tug-of-war can doom legislation.

Six years ago, another lawmaker who supported stronger vicious dog laws, thought a new case might spur his colleagues to action.

At age 8, Savannah Coleman was playing in a neighbor’s backyard with her friend when a pit bull named Boss clamped down on her head. Another neighbor pulled the dog off her. Savannah underwent multiple surgeries and treatments at Dayton Children’s Hospital.

The dog owners paid a $120 fine, declared bankruptcy and moved out of the neighborhood.

Dumont, Savannah’s mother, reached out to Dayton area Republican lawmaker Niraj Antani. Together, they’d try, again, to change the dangerous dog laws.

Antani picked up where Beagle left off, introducing a bill in 2019. He named it after Savannah and used photos of the injured and bandaged child in a Statehouse press conference. Antani hoped highlighting a child victim would elicit sympathy and give the bill a fighting chance.

Again, the bill went nowhere.

“A lot of these cases are with children, and they’re dying or have disfigurements or lifelong injuries. And, you know, I’m just a mom trying to protect my kid and get justice for her,” Dumont said. “I don’t understand why other people are not in support of that.”

The consequences of that failure have been severe.

In the time since the Savannah Coleman legislation failed to pass, serious dog attacks have continued: in February 2023, a pit bull in Medina ripped off Lisa Reau’s right arm. In October 2022, cyclist Eva Simons lost her left leg in an attack in Vinton County. In December 2022, Michael Palmer lost both ears, both thumbs and a finger in a dog attack in Summit County. In February 2023, Bonnie Varnes, a school bus driver in the Toledo area, got pulled down in her backyard and mauled to death by her daughter’s dog, Amina.

Children often are among the victims. Nationwide, 1 million of the 4.7 million people bitten by dogs each year require medical treatment. Kids under 10 account for nearly half of the bite victims and are overrepresented in fatalities.

In December 2024, 3-year-old Kingsley Wright died when her family dogs attacked her in Cincinnati. In July 2024, 6-year-old Jaxson Dvorak died when his uncle’s dogs attacked him in Lorain. In December 2023, 21-month-old Amya Jeffrey died after being attacked by the family dog in Cardington, a village in Morrow County. In October 2021, toddler Ka’vay Louis-Calderon died when two family dogs attacked her in Akron. In August 2020, 7-month-old Javier Benavides was killed in a dog attack in Stow. In January 2020, 4-month-old McKenzie Terwell died when her family pit bull pulled her from the living room couch where she slept with her mother.

Dayton police responding to a 911 call found McKenzie’s dad, Parker Terwell, on his front porch, crying and holding his infant daughter’s lifeless body. Her left eye was gone, her head was mangled.

She was still wearing the black polka dot onesie that said “Happy.”

Often, as in McKenzie’s case, the attacking dogs are known to the victim. They live in their home or belong to a neighbor or friend. That can complicate efforts to write and enforce laws that protect people from dangerous dogs.

It also can complicate efforts to ensure dangerous dogs don’t get an opportunity to harm anyone and, if they do, to hold owners accountable, legally and financially, for their actions.

In West Chester, Amriel Wilkinson waited six years to win an undisclosed settlement from a homeowner’s insurance company after she was attacked at age 4 in 2018 by a Rottweiler.

She was with her aunt, Kianah Towe, at the Indian Hill house owned by Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes, a former Major League Baseball player. Kianah was dating Rhodes’ son. Rhodes, who was out of town at the time, said Towe had no right to be in his home that night, or to let his dogs out of his bedroom, where he said they were penned up.

Towe let the dogs outside and started a load of laundry. That’s when the dog attacked, tossing the child around, tearing her face, nose and buttocks.

Tiara Towe, Amriel’s mom, rushed to the hospital to meet them.

“My sister jumped out and she was covered head to toe in blood. And then Amriel got pulled out on the stretcher and that’s when I saw her whole right-side jawline, I saw her teeth, her jawbone. Everything was exposed and she was covered in blood, head to toe,” Towe said. “I was not expecting it to be that severe.”

After seven hours of surgery, Amriel began the long road to recovery. She had nine surgeries over the next several years.

Her medical expenses, covered by Ohio Medicaid, are approaching $1 million.

Amriel still bears the scars today. They spread across her cheeks, nose and lips like a crooked river system. One nostril is higher than the other. The right side of her mouth is tight, and her lips uneven. Sometimes, other kids ask her what happened.

“At first, it kind of made me upset,” Amriel said. “But now I get used to it.”

Rhodes, the dog’s owner, said his Rottweiler, Kane, had no history of aggressive behavior. He said he had an adult dog sitter while he was on vacation, the dogs were on his property, and he didn’t even know Amriel was at his house.

“I feel terrible about what happened to the little girl,” he said.

Rhodes opted to euthanize Kane 10 weeks after the attack.

“Kane was my last dog,” he said.

$1 million in bills, a leg amputation and a $46,000 insurance payout

While Amriel’s case is all too common in some respects, the resolution was not. Rhodes was insured and Amriel’s family secured a settlement.

Many victims of dog attacks struggle to win even modest financial compensation via civil lawsuits. The dog owner might not be insured or have financial resources. Often the only path is to sue the landlord who carries property insurance, arguing they knew their renters had dangerous dogs.

Still, insurance policies can exempt coverage for certain breeds or cap payouts well below what a victim might rack up in medical bills.

Columbus resident Eva Simons, 66, spent two years pursuing a settlement after she lost a leg in a dog attack in 2022. She ended up getting about $46,000.

Three pit bulls attacked Simons when she stopped after getting a flat tire while biking in Vinton County, near the Moonville Tunnel.

On the walk back to her car, the dogs charged out of a house on Shea Road.

“I started yelling, hoping that someone would run out of the house and get the dogs,” she said. “No one came.”

Simons fended them off briefly but then got knocked over. The three pit bulls − a mother and her 2-year-old male pups − dragged her into a field, ravaging both of her legs.

“I made a decision while it was happening. In order to save the rest of me, I just had to let them have the leg,” Simons said.

After 20 to 25 minutes, three Good Samaritans scared off the dogs, wrapped Simons in a blanket and hoodie and then raced through 25 miles of backroads to a local hospital.

The day after the attack, Simons said, the dog owners went trick-or-treating as surgeons cut off her left leg. “That was painful to know,” she said. “While I was still fighting for my life in the hospital, they just went on with their life.”

Following the amputation of her left leg, she endured excruciating debridement of her right leg, which had become infected. After 33 days in hospitals, Simons returned to her home in Clintonville. She had to re-learn how to shower, climb stairs, do laundry and other everyday activities.

“Everything is more challenging,” she said. “Every time I attempt something new, I have to think about how I’m going to do it.”

Two years after the attack, Simons is still outraged by what she sees as injustices and a lack of accountability. While she lost her leg, the dogs’ owner faced only misdemeanor charges for failing to register and confine his three dogs. He paid $682 in fines and court costs.

Simons estimates her medical bills, mostly covered by insurance, approached $1 million.

Simons sued the landlord who rented the house to the dog owners. The insurance policy capped liability coverage at $100,000 and after lawyers’ fees and paybacks to medical insurance companies, she netted $46,073.85.

“This is the only compensation I have received for the loss of my left leg, injuries to my right leg, pain and suffering, and most of all, living the rest of my life as an amputee, possibly facing complications and revision surgeries,” she said.

The insurance check and the dog owner’s fines are not enough for Simons.

“What bothers me is that there was no responsibility or accountability, other than the small fine they paid,” Simons said. “There was nothing stopping them from getting another pack of dogs and doing the same thing.”

Drew Russell understands that kind of frustration. Two pit bulls attacked her 11-year-old daughter, Avery, in June while she was playing with a friend at a home in Reynoldsburg. The dogs ripped off both her ears, gouged her cheek, forehead and abdomen.

When she got the call telling her to go directly to the pediatric hospital, Russell wasn’t thinking about Ohio’s dog laws or whether her fellow Ohioans take seriously the threat posed by dangerous dogs. She only was thinking about her daughter.

Her aunt told Russell to take photos of Avery’s injuries. Russell thought that was crazy. But she handed her cellphone to a nurse, who took the pictures.

“I’m glad I have them,” she said months later.

In the months after the attack, as her daughter endures a slow recovery, Russell decided to share the photos. She wants others to see what happens when a vicious dog attacks.

She hopes those photos inspire, and her daughter’s story, changes that will prevent other kids from suffering the same fate.

Russell hired Columbus attorney Bill Patmon III, whose father served in the Ohio House and carried the bill to make animal cruelty a felony.

They plan to lobby state lawmakers to reform dangerous dog laws. They’re talking about some of the same changes Beagle and Antani tried to achieve years ago. They want felony charges for dog owners in certain vicious attacks and euthanasia for dogs after the first serious injury or fatality. And they’re kicking around ways to require more robust insurance coverage and categorizing dogs over 25 pounds as potentially dangerous.

Russell wants to work with other families who have gone through the same trauma and loss.

“If we don’t fight or try to effect some kind of change, then what’s it all for? What’s all the suffering for?” she said. “Because it’s just going to keep happening.”

Akron Beacon Journal reporter Stephanie Warsmith and Columbus Dispatch reporter Max Filby contributed to this report.

Laura Bischoff is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.