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| THE ROAD TO RECOVERY: Months after the attack, Roger Brooks returns to the rock where he sought refuge from the dogs. Photography by Elizabeth Lavin. |
I trot down the alley, down the street, out of the neighborhood, toward the Flower Mound trail system. It is 7:30 on May 25, bright, and already warm.
My usual path takes me to a greenbelt that connects to a large park. When I get there, I relax. In the greenbelt, there are no cars. I count the birds as I move—anything to pass the time. Four cardinals, two robins, three blue jays, countless house sparrows.
Two miles from home, I’m warmed up. The music from my iPod pushes me faster. I can feel my legs responding to the work. It’s a good sign.
And then I see them. In the brush near the trail, 20 yards away, two large dogs are rooting around, their muzzles to the ground. The yellow one appears to be a mutt. The other looks mostly Rottweiler. Neither has a leash attached to its collar, and I glance around, looking for their owner, but the park is empty.
When I was 11, I had a border collie, Max, who followed me everywhere, including on my daily summer trips across the neighborhood to play pickup football. One afternoon, a small boy was walking a large Doberman that broke off its leash and charged us. Max lept at him, attacking his throat with a ferocity I had never seen. When it was over, the Doberman was dead, and I was never comfortable around large dogs again.
And now two of them block my path. I slow to a walk and pull my headphones down around my neck. The runner in me hates to break his rhythm. The boy tastes a coppery mixture of fear and adrenaline. In the seconds before the two dogs turn toward me to charge, I am utterly vulnerable.
They break for me, quickly closing the distance to pull up short. They growl, paws spread in front of their bodies, heads held low. I’ve read the safety pamphlets. I stand up straight and puff out my chest. I bark back at the dogs, “No! Go home! No!”
The dogs separate and begin circling counterclockwise, one always behind me. This isn’t like other times dogs have barked at me, posturing. These dogs mean business. They work as a team. I turn in the opposite direction, trying to keep both in my field of vision.
The yellow mutt strikes first, lunging for my right knee. I feel his teeth plunge into my skin. I hear flesh tear. It sounds like a rusty zipper being pulled apart. The pain is intense, but it is the shock and confusion that make me cry out.
I lose track of the Rottweiler and pay for it. He bites my left knee from behind, and I realize they are trying to unhinge my legs. They are trying to bring me down. My shouts of “No!” turn into shrill, desperate yelps.
The dogs continue to circle. I spin at their center, careening across the field, looking for help. There is no high ground. No tree to climb. No car to jump onto.
The yellow dog strikes again, his teeth tearing into my lower thigh, ripping through muscle. I swipe with my fist and swing my headphones at him. As they fall to the ground, I wonder if I’ll have a chance to collect them later. He attacks twice more. I can see my blood on his tongue and teeth. I can see pieces of my skin in his mouth.
Now I scream, “Somebody help me!” The Rottweiler attacks from behind. I lose my balance and fall. I’m terrified. Time slows down. Everything is overexposed. I think of my wife, asleep and unaware of what is happening. I can see her quiet face. The yellow dog lands on my chest. I swing and connect with his neck, stunning him long enough to scramble to my feet. I take off.
Halfway across the field, I feel drained. Everything goes fuzzy. Even the pain seems further off—unimportant. I’m beginning to give up. I shout, “They are going to kill me!” In the distance, I hear people calling to me. They are on some other planet.
A deep bite on my right knee brings me back. My leg is a river of blood. I step away and it wobbles. I try to steady myself, but the muscles won’t support me. I fall again. The yellow dog attacks my leg this time, sinking his teeth deeper than before. I howl, kick, and push myself up off the ground. I can’t fall down again. I don’t have the energy to get back up.
The attacks have now moved us to the far side of the field. I’m limping, and the heat in my right leg has been replaced by a jelly feeling. I catch something copper-colored in my eye and chance a quick look over my shoulder. It’s a large river rock, 3 feet tall, with steep sides. I scramble backward up the rock, never taking my eyes off the dogs. The Rottweiler lunges at my foot, and I kick him in the head.
On top of the rock, I put my weight on my left, less-damaged leg. The dogs try to reach me, but I now hold the high ground. I kick them each time they lunge. I don’t do any real damage, but the wildness in their eyes begins to fade.
As quickly as it began, it ends. The dogs simply lose interest. They are thirsty and race over to drink water from a drainage ditch.
The world comes rushing back. The rock sits at the far end of the park, near a neighborhood. A boy watches from his porch. Another is walking toward the park on his way to school. I scream at him to go home. He looks bewildered but turns back anyway. Two women who witnessed the attack call out to me. “Stay on the rock. We’ve called the police.” Where were all these people two minutes ago?
I look down at my legs. The left one is scratched and bleeding. A hematoma is beginning to form under my hip. But the right leg is bad. My sock is pink. My shorts are torn. Black pieces of flesh hang from the puncture wounds.
One of the women joins me on the rock. “Sit down. Get off your legs,” she says. “I can’t sit down,” I say. “What if they come back?” I cry and shake.
Curious faces begin to float out of the neighborhood and gather around the rock. A cop finally appears. So do the dogs’ owners. The wife asks the cop to shoot the animals, but she refuses. The husband moves toward the rock, examining my wounds. He snorts. “Guess they got you pretty good, huh?”
A fire truck screams toward the park, followed closely by an ambulance and animal services. The paramedics ask me to step off the rock so they can help me onto a gurney. I refuse. “I’m not leaving this rock until the dogs leave,” I say. I’m sure I seem hysterical, but the paramedics try to look sympathetic. I watch the dogs go into a van, and they haul me to the ambulance.
My wife joins me at the ER and watches as the nurse takes off the dressings the paramedics applied in the ambulance. Kimberly sees my wounds and passes out in her chair. More nurses come to attend to her. As the morphine begins to dull the pain, I can assess the damage: 15 bites in all. My quad and calf are pockmarked in places, cratered in others. But there will be no stitches: the wounds are too deep to stitch up. The doctor wants my body to “seep” out the harmful bacteria. The nurse tells me that my wife will have to help me clean and dress the wounds twice a day for weeks. Kimberly looks nauseous at the prospect.
They tell me I can go home. “What do I do now?” I ask anyone. My wife strokes my head and kisses my forehead. No one answers.
The next few weeks are a series of doctor visits, and, finally, psychiatric treatments. Not long after the attack, the nightmares start. Most are vivid replays of attack, except that when I fall down, I don’t find a way up, and the yellow dog rips my throat out. I soak the sheets with my sweat almost nightly. Kimberly doesn’t complain; she just helps me change the sheets. I sleep only a few hours a night. The nightmares are followed by panic attacks that leave me uncommunicative and confused. I have trouble concentrating at work.
The panic attacks and constant fear lead to what’s termed “hyper vigilance.” I begin checking and rechecking the locks on our doors and windows. I buy several cans of pepper spray and insist that Kimberly and I carry one at all times. I place another can by the bed to go along with the baseball bat and hunting knife that I now stow under it. I decide not to go outside unless I have to.
The therapist tells me I’m suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. All of my symptoms are common and surmountable, she tells me. “Will I ever feel safe enough to run outside again?” I ask. She’s confident that I can, in time. I’m glad someone is.
The dogs are quarantined for two weeks and observed for symptoms of rabies. Then they are euthanized. I later find out that this was the second violent incident involving these animals in four months. The city calls me at work the day the dogs are put down. I weep a little for them at my desk.
Two months pass in a haze of anxiety. My legs get strong enough that I can begin light jogging. I go to my local gym, where I’m forced to answer the same questions repeatedly. It’s not much different at work. People wanting to know why I am on crutches stop me every time I leave my desk. The story gets shorter each time I tell it.
Two months gray into three, and I continue my monotonous treadmill runs to nowhere. I’m running, but it’s not the running I love.
My therapist begins something called EMDR therapy (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). I track the movements of her finger as I let my mind play out a scenario she has suggested. “Picture yourself in the park. The dogs approach. Now let your mind go where it will.” I track her finger and watch the dogs tear into my leg. The goal is to reprogram me to alleviate the stress and physical symptoms associated with the attack.
Three months after the attack, for the first time since that May morning, I wake up with the itch to run outside. To grab my clothes and iPod and head out the door. But I’m not quite ready.
I settle for a walk with Kimberly. When we reach the greenbelt, I feel in my pocket for the pepper spray. There are many dogs, but they are all are accompanied by their owners. And they’re on leashes. We look across the field at the rock, 30 yards away, that likely saved my life. “I can’t believe you made it all the way over there,” she says. I don’t know how to reply, so I turn away, embarrassed.
I’m angry that my runs have been stolen by the negligence of others. And I’m angry that I can’t sleep without dreaming of the dogs’ teeth. And I’m scared to be here, a place I’ve enjoyed almost every day for three years. And being scared just makes me more angry.
Because running, for me, isn’t just exercise. Each trip out the door, each step—2-9-8—puts more distance between me and a person I don’t ever want to see again. Running is my salvation. Without it, I’m afraid of what I might become. I long for my routine, for the birds I counted every day, for the feeling in my legs as I let my stride out a little more—for running without fear.
Roger Brooks is the managing editor of D Home.
