A pregnant Kansas woman was left with devastating facial injuries after she was mauled by her neighbor’s two pit bulls last month — and says she is grateful the attack did not take her life or the lives of her unborn twins.
Audrey Austin, who was 24 weeks pregnant at the time, said the dogs charged at her in the dark outside her Topeka home on July 17. As she tried to shield her stomach and protect her babies, she broke a finger in the struggle.
The assault nearly cost Austin an eye and her nose, according to her partner, who said she underwent at least 14 hours of surgery as doctors worked “to put her face back together.”
Austin has blamed the dogs’ owner, her neighbor Tina Buck, who has since been charged. Speaking with WIBW, Austin said she knows the attack could have ended in tragedy and remembered being terrified that her unborn children had been hurt during the mauling.
“I didn’t know where the blood was coming from. I didn’t know it was coming from my face. I thought it was coming from my stomach, so I was blocking my stomach the best that I can,” she recalled.
“[Buck] almost cost three lives that night … not just mine but my twins.”
Austin was eventually rescued when a friend intervened and tackled the animals. One of the dogs was later shot and killed by a responding police officer.
“If it wasn’t for the gentleman — our friend who stepped in — he said the dogs would have killed her,” her partner, CJ Austin, previously told WBIW.
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The expectant mother made clear that she does not blame the animals.
“There are dogs out there that are sweet and innocent. It’s the owners and how you raise them,” she said.
Buck was issued a municipal citation for dangerous dogs and was booked on Thursday on charges of interfering with law enforcement and having dogs running at large, WCTV reported.
She has since posted bond and is expected back in court in September.
Austin said her babies remain in good health and she is expected to deliver in November, after returning to her apartment complex following an extended spell of treatment.
“No dog is going to keep me from coming home,” she said.
Her partner said she will still “be scarred for the rest of her life.”
“She has nightmares of that dog attacking her. She wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, ‘Get him off me. Get him off me.’ That’s traumatizing her,” he said.
A GoFundMe set up to cover Austin’s medical expenses and support her while she is unable to work had almost reached its $9,000 target as of Tuesday morning.
Some 800,000 dog bite victims require professional treatment annually, and of the 30-50 fatal attacks involving dog bites per year, almost two-thirds involve pit bulls, according to figures from DogsBite.org.
