Sixteen days after being attacked by two dogs, who police said bit his face and ripped his leg flesh down to muscle and tendon, a 47-year-old man was released from the hospital. A 12-year-old boy and another dog were also injured in the Sept. 19 rampage by the two dogs, according to police reports. Faced with limited choices, police said the attacking dogs’ owner took them to be euthanized.
Fabian Guzman, the 47-year-old victim, underwent skin graft surgery Sept. 30, he said last week, and reported he was finally released from Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood in the late afternoon on Tuesday.
“It’s going to be a long process, but I feel a lot better,” he said by phone as he was leaving the hospital.
Franklin Park Police Chief Michael Witz said Tuesday the dogs’ owner, Maria Alcantara Salgado of Franklin Park, voluntarily took her dogs to an animal hospital on Monday and had them euthanized.
“That was her decision,” Witz said.
Last week, Witz had spoken with Salgado, who was given the options of putting her dogs in a shelter away from people or having them euthanized, in the interest of protecting the public from future attacks.
Salgado received three $250 citations for the incident. She did not respond to calls seeking comment.
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The dog attack took place Sunday, Sept. 19 around 2 p.m., when the two pit bulls escaped from their yard in the 2700 block of Scott Street and attacked a goldendoodle dog named Yogi, according to its owner, Franklin Park resident Adam Uzarewicz. Uzarewicz, who was walking Yogi on Scott Street north of Grand Avenue at the time of the attack, said his dog needed surgery.
One of the two pit bulls next attacked a 12-year-old boy who was walking out of a barbershop to a parking lot at 1001 Grand Avenue, where his mother was waiting in a car, according to police reports. The boy suffered deep cuts on his back and a bloody chin, the reports said.
Calls to the boy’s family were not returned.
The pit bulls then next found Guzman, whose wife had just dropped him off in a car to pick up a bicycle at his brother’s house on the 2700 block of Scott Street. As he was riding it near the intersection of Grand and Scott, both dogs attacked him.
“I was trying to escape by getting to my car but one dog grabbed one of my legs and the other grabbed the other, so they were heavy and pulled me down. One was trying to bite my neck and then they started biting my face,” said Guzman Sept. 27 from his bed at the hospital.
Police reports said Guzman lost an “excessive amount of blood,” and suffered open wounds to his legs down to the muscle and tendons, and lacerations to his face, chin, ears and back. His wife, who was in the car, also suffered a bite to her finger while trying to help him.
When a passerby, Joaquin Garcia Jr., stopped his vehicle to help Guzman, Guzman initially couldn’t shake the dogs off his legs. He eventually succeeded, climbed into Garcia’s car, and Garcia took him to paramedics.