KEY POINTS:
If anyone thinks dog bites are trivial injuries, Waikato Hospital plastic surgeon Winston McEwan says think again.
"I've just been working in Africa for the last six months and seen multiple crocodile bites there," he said.
"They were pretty nasty, people with crushed limbs and things, but when I was working in Christchurch I remember a small boy who got his arms caught in the jaws of a pitbull terrier and fractured both forearm bones from the bite, as well as suffering soft tissue injuries."
The worst dog-bite injuries Mr McEwan has seen were those on Auckland girl Carolina Anderson. She was mauled by a dog in 2003, and he assisted with the many operations performed on the then 7-year-old.
"A lot of wounds become infected. The injuries have to be really well washed out in the first few hours. Once the infection is got on top of, then there is the whole problem of reconstruction, or putting back what has been torn and ripped."
It is more common for adults to be bitten on limbs - legs, because of a human's height, or arm wounds, from defending themselves - whereas children were often bitten on the face.
At least one dog-bite victim a week would arrive at Waikato Hospital for treatment, Mr McEwan said.
"It's not like being hit with a hockey stick or something where there is blunt trauma. This is a penetrating wound, and the tooth can go in a long way.
"Even small puncture wounds can end up being quite big operations just because you have to cut quite widely to get to where the base of the tooth has gone."
Dawn Brocket's injury - losing a lump of tissue - was unusual because most dog-bite victims had grabbing and tearing injuries, Mr McEwan said.
"With most people, where there has been a wound you will end up with a scar, but through plastic surgery we can carefully hide the scar as much as possible.
"It is possible to get people looking reasonably normal, but you can never quite get back to the original."
