A Survivor's Story

Dr. Nancy Matthews didn't cry. She didn't run. After a short fight, she curled into the fetal position and remained still, trying to keep her neck, face and the back of her legs unexposed.

Healing from within: "I can only hope my ordeal will help raise awareness and help someone. The damage these dogs can do is amazing."

The 46-year-old equine veterinarian recalls the high-pitched shrills of her two young sons, her own screams urging the boys to run and, in her ear, the snarls of the dogs.

Her recount is gruesome. The Nov. 9 walk with two of her six children, ages 9 and 11, started off like most others. In Valley Center, a semi-rural town north of San Diego, there are plenty of unpaved pathways. On one of those slow, dirt roads two Boxers walked out from behind her neighbor's open gate.

Matthews, a veterinarian for nearly 20 years, says she's never been fearful of dogs. Like many of her colleagues, she's regarded the nation's growing movement calling for breed-specific bans as a cop out for what's really an ownership issue not inherent to animals.

But that afternoon, something triggered the canines' alarming behavior. Matthews believes fear in her younger child's eyes set one of the dogs off and, in turn, provoked their pack instinct. It also ignited her maternal drive to protect.

Protecting her two sons never left Dr. Nancy Matthews' mind. "More than anything, I was concerned for them," she says.

"As a vet, I know my way around dogs and other animals. But when one of the dogs saw Heath, he saw easy prey. The dog lunged past me, and when he went after Heath, I jumped him."

The attack happened so fast Matthews had no idea whether or not the boys were hurt. "I thought my son was dead," she says. Yet in reality, the oldest, Patrick, had climbed a barbwire fence while Heath shimmied up a pole.

The dogs knocked Matthews down and for 15 minutes they tore at her, dragging her body into a ditch while inflicting more than 90 bite wounds. Consciousness was fleeting. Curling up in a ball proved Matthews' best defense.

"I knew I was dying," she recalls. "I realized the boys were seeing me get killed. I didn't know how long I could keep the dogs busy, but I had to protect myself. I had seen what dogs could do to horses. I knew they would go for the jugular and the back of my legs."

Investigation ensues

Matthews now realizes the boys were screaming for help. After what seemed an eternity, the hysterics alerted the dogs' owner who fought the animals off with a rake. After contacting her husband, Matthews went to the hospital by ambulance, receiving a blood transfusion, six hours of plastic surgery and other medical attention for a week.

Matthews reflects on breed bans: "They won't work. Dogs can have the phenotypic appearance of a non-banned breed but aggressive tendencies lurking in the genotype."

During her stay, authorities revealed at least one of the dogs was the subject of two previous but minor attacks. The owner turned the dogs in to authorities, and San Diego County Department of Animal Control officials promptly euthanized the animals. Regional Director John Carlson claims problems with an earlier victim's statement prevented officials from destroying the dogs sooner. There was no indication that they were fighting dogs, he adds.

"This is not a breed that's normally fought, but these guys were pretty nasty," he says. "The fact that the victim is a veterinarian didn't help her. I've seen plenty of professionals attacked."

Carlson has since forwarded a report to the County of San Diego District Attorney's office, which assigned what's referred to as "The Matthews Incident" to a prosecutor who will review the case for criminal charges.

Mixed emotions

Although grateful to the woman who saved her life, Matthews says she's furious the dogs went after her children.

"Someone's animals almost killed my sons, yet saved my life. What do you do with that range of emotions?" she asks. "My brain is trying so hard to get around this. As a veterinarian, you devote so many years to studying hard and doing your service to animals. You can't imagine something like this happening."

When dogs attack

Since the incident, Matthews' has nightmares and her children are just as emotionally shaken. Patrick, who once talked of becoming a veterinarian like his parents, now is terrified of unfamiliar dogs. Heath remains nervous around the three dogs in the Matthews' home.

Even Matthews, who once insisted that vicious dogs were the product of faulty owners, now has a somewhat altered perception: "Dogs are wonderful as puppies, but as they grow, instinct takes over. It may not take much environmentally to trigger an attack response for a dog that's genetically capable of instinct. A dog like this is like having a loaded and cocked rifle. Considering what I've gone through, it's amazing that I'm alive. I thank God that my boys are OK and I am not dead."