65-year-old Allan Lorton, of Knight Road, Sherwood in Durban, died of his wounds on Tuesday after being viciously mauled in an attack by his neighbours’ pit bull. Neighbours and bystanders could only watch in horror as the pensioner bled profusely during the attack.

According to Lorton’s wife, the pit bull had crawled through a hole in the wall in their garden, possibly to attack their three Toy Pomeranians.

Lorton’s wife, Linda, 64, was in complete shock following the incident:

My husband heard a commotion and went outside. The pit bull went for him and he tried to shake the dog off. He held it by its collar and got on his knees.

He screamed for help and neighbours arrived, Linda continued:

He was bleeding profusely, but none of them could do anything because they were afraid the dog would attack them. The owner came over and she could not stop her dog either.

The police then arrived and fired shots in the air, trying to scare the dog off my husband.

This did nothing to deter the animal and it carried on attacking Lorton before its owner told the police to shoot it.

It took eight shots before the pit bull died.

Linda said of her late husband:

He always took care of our dogs and took them for walks in the parks every day. He would play with them inside the house.

She explained that her community now needed to do something about pit bulls in the area:

It is like a fashion statement to walk around with pit bulls. People are always walking around with the dogs and they do not realise how dangerous they are. Something must be done.

A neighbour, who is a nurse, performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation attempting to revive Lorton, but it was in vein and due to the blood loss, paramedics certified him dead at the scene.

It had taken an ambulance an hour to arrive.

The owner of the pit bull had taken her second pit bull to the SPCA to be put down.

[Source: IOL]