Supplied by Caylin Hardwich
A young Nelson Mandela Bay resident is lying in Greenacres hospital awaiting urgent surgery to his right leg after he was mauled on the arms and legs by a pack of five pitbulls in Sherwood.
Shockingly, the dogs also attacked two other people shortly thereafter, and they are also been treated in hospital.
27-year-old Luke Hardwich, who lives in Fairview, was attacked around 5pm on Friday while waiting on his motorbike outside his mother's complex in Montrose Street in Sherwood.
His wife Caylin says the driver of a passing car warned Luke to watch out for the dogs, who'd apparently escaped from a property in the same street, but by then it was too late.
"The pitbulls surrounded his bike and one jumped onto his bike," said Caylin.
"Luke held on to his bike and tried to stay still but one of the dogs kept sniffing him and the next minute it grabbed his arm and that was the green light for all the dogs to attack him.
"They pulled him off the bike and he managed to poke the one pitbull in the eye to stop it biting his arm and he then used that arm to punch one of the other dogs," said Caylin.
She told AlgoaFM News that her husband had then jumped onto the black Datsun Go, whose driver had alerted him, but that the dogs chased him onto the car.
"They started attacking him on the car and then pulled him off the vehicle and dragged him through the mud. Each dog had a limb and was literally pulling him apart. Unfortunately his right leg is the most badly damaged and the doctors now need to perform surgery to save his leg."
Hardwich said the horror did not end with her husband as the pitbulls proceeded to attack a teenage girl walking her dogs and then a young child who's father intervened by using the baby chair or stroller as protection. They also both ended up in hospital and were still there when she visited her husband on Friday night.
Security company Atlas and emergency services responded to the scene and Luke Hardwich was take to hospital by ambulance.
Hardwich said she planned to lay charges and would also most definitely be contacting the SPCA to look into the incident and the circumstances in which the dogs are being kept.
