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An elderly wheelchair-bound woman says she is lucky she hasn't lost the use of her arm following a savage dog attack.
Dawn Brocket, 75, was attacked by a doberman on Wednesday in Matangi, near Hamilton, while going for an "evening stroll" in her wheelchair.
Mrs Brocket, who is partially blind and has been in a wheelchair for more than 50 years after contracting polio, was discharged from Waikato Hospital yesterday following surgery on her right arm.
Mrs Brocket said the dog took a chunk of flesh the size of a small orange out of her arm.
"I was going past the gate ... and all of a sudden the dog came bounding up and attacked my arm," she said.
Luckily, local resident John Bennett rode past on his bicycle and came to her rescue.
"If it hadn't been for [Mr Bennett] it could have been worse ... I could have lost my arm."
She would like the dog put down. "[After the attack] I was thinking thank God it wasn't a child because a child wouldn't have survived that."
Waikato District Council environmental services group manager Nath Pritchard said the dog hadn't been caught and the owner wasn't answering the door or phone calls.
He said the dog had been impounded for a short time two weeks ago after it "rushed at another dog".
Mrs Brocket's son Wayne Brocket said Mr Bennett was a "godsend" for intervening and saving his mother.
